If you have $300,000 to shoot a cigarette on a table, it's an enormous amount of money. Maybe that's why my movies are the way they are. But it's the only way I can make a living.

ALPHA-60: Your name is written "Ivan Johnson," but it is pronounced "Lemmy Caution," Secret Agent Zero Zero Three of the Outlands. You are a threat to the security of Alphaville. CAUTION: I refuse to become what you call "normal." ... ALPHA-60: You cannot escape. The door is locked. CAUTION: Try to stop me, pal.

i've always wanted, basically, to do research in the form of a spectacle.

The projector will soon disappear. The camera, not really. OK, it depends... it depends on change.

The cinema is not an art which films life: the cinema is something between art and life.

People come to Cannes just to advertise their films, not with a particular message. But the advantage is that if you go to the festival, you get so much press coverage in three days that it advertises the film for the rest of the year.

We are losing our own capacity because we are poisoned in one way or another.