There's always a tension in me between my urge to destroy and my will to live... Every morning I wake up with a new wrath, a new suspiciousness, a new desire to live.

One of ennui's most terribel components is the overwhelming feeling of ennui that comes over you whenever you try to explain it.

Say anything you want against The Seventh Seal. My fear of death - this infantile fixation of mine - was, at that moment, overwhelming. I felt myself in contact with death day and night, and my fear was tremendous. When I finished the picture, my fear went away. I have the feeling simply of having painted a canvas in an enormous hurry - with enormous pretension but without any arrogance. I said, 'Here is a painting; take it, please.'

I have thus decided to make a certain film and now begins the complicated and difficult-to-master work. To transfer rhythms, moods, atmosphere, tensions, sequences, tones and scents into words and sentences in a readable or at least understandable script. This is difficult but not impossible.

I want to be one of the artists in the cathedral on the great plain. I want to make a dragon's head, an angel, a devil - or perhaps a saint - out of stone.

Then I felt that every inflection of my voice, every word in my mouth, was a lie, a play whose sole purpose was to cover emptiness and boredom. There was only one way I could avoid a state of despair and a breakdown. To be silent. And to reach behind the silence for clarity or at least try to collect the resources that might still be available to me.

I don't watch my own films very often. I become so jittery and ready to cry... and miserable. I think it's awful.