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 think my movies aren't sentimental. I think my movies are funny and sad and realistic. Not realistic in the sense that they're documentaries, but realistic in the sense that they're not idealistic, they're not optimistic, not pessimistic, and not propagandistic. They're an analysis of a situation. I call it as I see it, so to speak.

It is always a problem to know what an image means.

You have to edit the material. That assumes that some kind of a mind is operating in relation to the material. Not all minds are the same. Every aspect of filmmaking requires choice. The selection of the subject, the shooting, editing and length are all aspects of choice.

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.

One's relationship to time is complicated, and sometimes a day will drag on forever and sometimes it'll be over in a flash. When you look back, "I'm old," after 40 or 60 years, I can't believe I'm as old as I am.

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.