I never suffered from the absence of a father. On the contrary, as a child I was more inclined to see men as a disturbing factor. It made things difficult for me when I started working as a director.

What I like are films that take me seriously, that don't treat me as more stupid than I am.

Of course, we avoid death. To know something is inevitable is one thing. To accept, to truly feel it... that's different.

I'm not really a happy person. It's a question of temperament. I have a tendency toward melancholy. You can feel quite happily melancholic.

Film is 24 lies per second at the service of truth, or at the service of the attempt to find the truth.

It became a gamble to myself whether I was able to do the exact same film ["Funny Games"]under very different circumstances.

To be perfectly honest, I think that as I'm growing older, I'm just growing more impatient. I'll be very happy if at some point people say, 'Michael's grown wiser and softer in his old age.' But we'll have to wait and see what my next project is.