I never regarded my pictures as very much to be proud of, except in this, the craft, the style.

I never regarded my pictures as very much to be proud of, except in this, the craft, the style.

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

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

In the 19th century, you had bourgeois art without politics - an almost frozen idea of what beauty is.

I considered that the homes that people live in exactly describe their lives.

Your characters have to remain innocent of what your picture is after.