I tried to find a language for the film - not just telling stories. I picked the Picasso painting because it said more than I could explain. I need images, I need representation which deals in other means than reality. We have to use reality but get out of it. That's what I try to do all the time.

I go back to many films that I really love. Some Bresson, some Godard of the early times, the Cassavetes of those years I love. And the early Wim Wenders. But my own films I don't watch, unless I need them.

People like my films. They understand me through my films; it's like a connection that has been established between all my work and myself and the audience and the viewer.

You are always in the world. Even in Vagabond. I am not on the road, I am not eating nothing. But in a way we all have a Mona. We all have inside ourselves a woman who walks alone on the road. In all women there is something in revolt that is not expressed.

I had a world. I don't think I had a career. I made films.

If I was tall and blonde, I might have been a dancer or singer.

I have respect for literature. If he found the words, if she found the words - this is a book!