I am convinced that any attempt to restore harmony in the world can only rest on the renewal of personal responsibility.

Art is born and takes hold wherever there is a timeless and insatiable longing for the spiritual...

It is perfectly possible to be a professional director or a professional writer and not to be an artist: merely a sort of executor of other people's ideas.

A man writes because he is tormented, because he doubts. He needs to constantly prove to himself and the others that he’s worth something. And if I know for sure that I’m a genius? Why write then? What the hell for?

The film [Stalker] needs to be slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theatre have time to leave before the main action starts.

My purpose is to make films that will help people to live, even if they sometimes cause unhappiness.

Art would be useless if the world were perfect.