If we could only find the courage to leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence.

A writer or painter cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of nonconformity alive.

I'm still an atheist, thank God.

If the devil were to offer me a resurgence of what is commonly called virility, I'd decline. ''Just keep my liver and lungs in good working order,'' I'd reply, ''so I can go on drinking and smoking!''

God and Country are an unbeatable team; they break all records for oppression and bloodshed.

I think films are perishable, because they depend too much on technology, which advances too quickly and the films become old-fashioned, antiques. What I hope for is that technology advances to the point that films in the future will depend on a little pill which you take; then you sit in the dark, and from your eyes you project the film you want to see on a blank wall.

You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all... Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it we are nothing.