The artist has a duty to be calm. He has no right to show his emotion, his involvement, to go pouring it all out at the audience. Any excitement over a subject must be sublimated into an Olympian calm of form. That is the only way in which an artist can tell of the things that excite him.

Weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing. When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible. When he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it's tender and pliant. But when it's dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death's companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win.

An artist cannot be partially sincere any more than art can be an approximation of beauty.

I am only interested in the views of two people: one is called Bresson and one called Bergman.

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

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

If you try to please audiences, uncritically accepting their tastes, it can only mean that you have no respect for them: that you simply want to collect their money.