I demand that a film express either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema. I am not at all interested in anything in between.

I am often asked at what point in my love affair with films I began to want to be a director or a critic. Truthfully, I don't know. All I know is that I wanted to get closer and closer to films.

The man who thinks he can do without the world is indeed mistaken; but the man who thinks the world cannot do without him is mistaken even worse.

Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, they are not so often the result of a great design as of chance.

When humor can be made to alternate with melancholy, one has a success, but when the same things are funny and melancholic at the same time, it's just wonderful.

I prefer to be busy all day long, and when you work for someone else, you're not busy enough.

Three films a day, three books a week and records of great music would be enough to make me happy to the day I die.