We made a film about the need for silence and withdrawal... and here we are at the epicentre of noise and excitement. Life is full of surprises.

I'm a pretty chaotic person, but I'm also a perfectionist. It's a very unfortunate mix.

I usually make films about what's on my mind at any given time.

I never work from the script. I get the script more or less.

It's always a good starting point to tell a story that has many layers.

I never made films like kind of career moves, like making this film in order to make that film in order to end up in Hollywood.

The changes are part of my writing process. When I write, I imagine scenes. I write things down. I take photographs. I do some casting. I rewrite. It's a permanent making or remaking.

'Ida' is about humanity, about guilt and forgiveness. It's not a film that deals with an issue as such. It's more universal.

For me, good films and good books are irreducible to a lesson. You can't just kind of translate them into one statement. On the contrary, the more you do that, the less wisdom in art there is.

The Christian God seemed the most offensive to people precisely because he was the most godlike. He was too perfect even to be coaxed by human efforts, and therefore sent his son to do the job.

You see, at young age I had known how bitter taste like and it all started with a cup of brewed coffee.

Air, an undervalued necessity, that earns your gratitude when you inhale it for the last time

The wise does at once what the fool does at last.

Peace, development, and justice are all connected to each other. We cannot talk about economic development without talking about peace. How can we expect economic development in a battlefield?

The death penalty makes us all murderers.

I wasn't the guy who got straight As. I got As and Bs and a couple Cs.

Turn things around sometimes and look at life from a different perspective.

Go and do, don't sit and stew.

The bank hath benefit of interest on all moneys which it creates out of nothing.