Very often with an American movie, the end is very happy and you just feel good when you go out. When you go to a French movie, it's kind of like, "oh!", and you can't go out; you're stuck in your chair. It goes so deeply inside of the heart.

I give everything I have to give on the screen. I feel I don't owe the public anything else.

There is a phrase in French, which means 'to miss.' To pass by. To not be able to stop. You love someone and someone loves you, but it just can't work for different reasons.

The body, in 'La Belle Noiseuse,' was the source of the artist's creativity.

I don't see my old films, but I think of the characters I played as friends, like the women I meet in my life who made strong impressions on me. I remember them and they are part of me.

The press follow me. I sue them. That's the deal.

Often, when you see yourself on the screen, you feel like a sweater that's been put through the washing machine. You have the impression of having done something full and luminous, and suddenly, when you see it on the screen, it's turned back into a tiny little thing.