I'm interested in ordinary experience, and regardless of the precise definition of ordinary, and I've found that in so-called ordinary experience, there is as much comedy, tragedy, sadness, as there is in great drama. And I don't invent it, I recognize it.

I am bad at cultural generalizations but I would venture to say that by a wide margin there is less hypocrisy about sex in France than in America.

I'm too busy to be nostalgic, which is one of the reasons to keep busy. I'm not a very sentimental person.

I don't really know what I want, other than good sequences, whatever that means. What I find is always a matter of chance, judgment, and luck.

I think I've learned a lot about how to make movies, and particularly about how to edit movies by thinking about how similar problems are resolved in other forms. The issues in all forms are the same in an abstract sense, aren't they? Characterization, abstraction, metaphor, passage of time... Whether it's a movie, a novel, a play, or a poem, those issues exist. And each person resolves them differently.

Documentary filmmaking ruins you for real life, because you learn to be extremely attentive.

I'm very careful of not being critical of other people's movies, which work in different styles. I think some of my movies can be interpreted as critical of their subjects.