Paris is a beautiful city to walk around in. And, you know, all the obvious things: I like the museums, I like the theater, I like the dance. And it's manageable. The food's good. I know a lot of interesting people here. I lived in Boston for 50 years or more. Wherever I am, I'm usually holed up most of the time in the editing room, and so, when I leave the editing room, even if I just take a walk, it's gorgeous. And I walk everywhere. I'm a victim of the seduction of Paris.

I think I've learned a lot about how to make movies, and particularly about how to edit movies by thinking about how similar problems are resolved in other forms. The issues in all forms are the same in an abstract sense, aren't they? Characterization, abstraction, metaphor, passage of time... Whether it's a movie, a novel, a play, or a poem, those issues exist. And each person resolves them differently.

I am bad at cultural generalizations but I would venture to say that by a wide margin there is less hypocrisy about sex in France than in America.

It's rare in a documentary film that you have a repetitive act. So when you do, you can shoot it in different ways so that you have more choices when you're sitting down to edit that sequence six months later.

I'm interested in ordinary experience, and regardless of the precise definition of ordinary, and I've found that in so-called ordinary experience, there is as much comedy, tragedy, sadness, as there is in great drama. And I don't invent it, I recognize it.

My goal is to make as many films as possible about different aspects of American life.

I do not think that my films or films by any other filmmaker represent "THE TRUTH." I do not feel the need to categorize my films or anyone else's.