A created thing is never invented and it is never true: it is always and ever itself.

What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one... It’s this in-between that I’m calling a province, this frontier country between the tangible world and the intangible one - which is really the realm of the artist.

Realism is a bad word. In a sense everything is realistic. I see no line between the imaginary and the real.

No critic writing about a film could say more than the film itself, although they do their best to make us think the oppposite.

You see me in my most virile moment when you see me doing what I do. When I am directing, a special energy comes upon me. ... It is only when I am doing my work that I feel truly alive. It is like having sex.

The greatest danger for artists is total freedom.

I don’t like the idea of “understanding” a film. I don’t believe that rational understanding is an essential element in the reception of any work of art. Either a film has something to say to you or it hasn’t. If you are moved by it, you don’t need it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it.