There is a wonderful expression: seeing through a glass darkly. Everything, even life, is inevitably removed from you. You can't reach, or touch, the real. You just see reflections

I think the great artists (..) have always thought with the heart.

I was making films about American society, and it is true that I never felt at home there, except perhaps when my wife and I lived on a farm in the San Fernando Valley. But I always wanted my characters to be more than cyphers for the failings of their world. And I never had to look too hard to find a part of myself in them

If I couldn't read, I couldn't live.

My idea at this time, which was slowly developing, was to create a comedie humaine with little people, average people - samples from every period in American life.

At the time I belonged to the socialist party, and Hitler came to power.

You have to think with the heart.