True values entail suffering. That’s the way we think. All in all, we tend to view melancholia as more true. We prefer music and art to contain a touch of melancholia. So melancholia in itself is a value. Unhappy and unrequited love is more romantic than happy love. For we don’t think that’s completely real, do we?…Longing is true. It may be that there’s no truth at all to long for, but the longing itself is true. Just like pain is true. We feel it inside. It’s part of our reality.

If I made a musical in the beginning of my career, it would have been crane shots and tracking shots and people coming out of cakes and whatever, but these techniques are something that I’ve left behind me.

I’m having a vacation and it’s so beautiful and maybe I’ll never get another film idea in my life.

I hope my films will never completely be without the ability to mark anybody.

I think working with actors is a little bit how a chef would work with a potato or a piece of meat. You have to kind of have a look at the potato or the piece of meat and see what kind of possibilities are in the ingredient. I know I'm using the wrong metaphor. I think my job is to see what potato is there and from there, just work under their conditions.

A film has to be like a stone in the shoe.

I had an almost fetishistic attraction to film technology.