I don't live in France; I live in myself.

I am an artist, you understand? For me, a picture is like poetry. When you make art, this is not coming from an intellectual place. It's coming from the deep side of your unconscious, your soul.

Maybe if literature was prohibited the same way as cocaine, people out of pure curiosity would try to get a couple of lines

Every person has a talent, but not the same one. Every person has to discover his personal talent and go with his talent. And then you are you, and what you do, you do because you love what you do, not because you want to be famous or because you're making money. You do the work because you love it.

If you are great, 'El Topo' is a great picture. If you are limited, 'El Topo' is limited.

And I imagine... with great pleasure... all the horrible stirrings of the nonmanifested to bring forth the scream which creates the universe. Maybe one day I'll see you trembling, and you'll go into convulsion and grow larger and smaller until your mouth opens and the world will come from your mouth, escaping through the window like a river, and it will flood the city. And then we'll begin to live.

I don't see myself as a moviemaker only, you know? When I can do a picture, I do. But I don't work like a business, in pictures. I am not obliged to make one picture after the other in order to live.