All technical refinements discourage me. Perfect photography, larger screens, hi-fi sound, all make it possible for mediocrities slavishly to reproduce nature; and this reproduction bores me. What interests me is the interpretation of life by an artist. The personality of the film maker interests me more than the copy of an object.

I am against great themes and great subjects... You can't film an idea. The camera is an instrument for recording physical impact.

The real hell of life is that everyone has his reasons.

There is no realism in American films. No realism, but something much better, great truth.

A film director is not a creator, but a midwife. His business is to deliver the actor of a child that he did not know he had inside him.

To the question, ‘Is the cinema an art?’ my answer is, ‘what does it matter?’... You can make films or you can cultivate a garden. Both have as much claim to being called an art as a poem by Verlaine or a painting by Delacroix… Art is ‘making.’ The art of poetry is the art of making poetry. The art of love is the art of making love... My father never talked to me about art. He could not bear the word.

The awful thing about life is this: everyone has their reasons.