The day we run out of petrol is the day Iran will be free.

I've often noticed that we are not able to look at what we have in front of us, unless it's inside a frame.

Religion works on some people but not on everyone, because it says, 'Stop thinking and accept what I tell you.' That's not valid for people who want to think and reflect.

Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.

A movie is about human beings, about humanity.

In the total darkness, poetry is still there, and it is there for you.

Film is very much a universal and common voice, and we can't limit it to one particular culture.

Good cinema is what we can believe and bad cinema is what we can't believe. What you see and believe in is very much what I'm interested in.

My way of expression is full of complications and mystery because that's my perception of life.

I would be too selfish if I said everyone should see my movies more than once. To say that would mean I'm just marketing my work!

I spend a lot of time doing carpentry. Sometimes there is nothing that gives me the contentment that sawing a piece of wood does.

My grandma always said that God made libraries so that people didn't have any excuse to be stupid.

Musicians exist independent of any of the marketing terms or the categorization.

One thing that attracted me to Buddhism was the support for this larger vision of values.

The first ape who became a man thus committed treason against his own kind.

You got to choose between tightening your belt or losing your pants.

Planes are my foxhole. I'm always on my knees in them.

Network. Anything reticulated or decussated at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.

I measure the success of my work by the way I feel about a film before anyone else has seen it. I think I can trust myself to know when the work is good and deep and interesting and when it isn't.

I have a right to live my life and just be me with whoever I choose. We just do the best we can.

There's a Welsh poet, R.S. Thomas. He was a very crotchety, strange man, but his poems are wonderful. He was nominated for the Nobel in the 1990s but never won.