What is line? It is life. A line must live at each point along its course in such a way that the artist's presence makes itself felt above that of the model... With the writer, line takes precedence over form and content. It runs through the words he assembles. It strikes a continuous note unperceived by ear or eye. It is, in a way, the soul's style, and if the line ceases to have a life of its own, if it only describes an arabesque, the soul is missing and the writing dies.

The poet Paul Éluard says that to understand my film version of Beauty and the Beast, you must love your dog more than your car.

The spirit of creation is the spirit of contradiction. It is the breakthrough of appearances toward an unknown reality.

The artist is a kind of prison from which the works of art escape.

He has the manner of a giant with the look of a child, a lazy activeness, a mad wisdom, a solitude encompassing the world.

Childhood knows what it wants - to leave childhood behind.

Poetry is a religion without hope, but its martyrs guarantee the eternal truth of its dogma.