What I have always loved most in men is imperfection.

We who are alive at this moment are only an infinitesimal part of something that has existed for eternity and will continue when there is no longer anything to show that earth existed. Still, we must feel and believe that we are all.

Books have always been living things to me. Some of my encounters with new authors have changed my life a little. When I have been perplexed, looking for something I could not define to myself, a certain book has turned up, approached me as a friend would. And between it's cover carried the questions and the answers I was looking for.

I believe we come to earth with sealed orders. I believe that only those who lack passion look down on purpose.

You see that a lot in movies, and today you see it more in movies that are made, because I feel more movies are made towards groups than towards individuals, and they're made more for mass media than for sitting in a movie house allowing it to happen.

I can't expect people to decide that they will change with me, so I can see why I'm on the old side.

August Strindberg gave me the opportunity to have this incredible story [Miss Julie ], about the class system, about unfairness in life, but also this story about man and woman. What I wanted, because he gave me the freedom, to give her a voice that I missed a little in her.