I read somewhere that happiness is like the bluebird of Maeterlinck: Try to catch it and it loses its color. It's like trying to hold water in your hands. The more you squeeze it, the more the water runs away.

The women I like, no matter what nationality, all seem to have more or less the same qualities. Perhaps this is because one goes looking for them - that is, you like that type of woman and then look for her.

Till now I have never shot a scene without taking account of what stands behind the actors because the relationship between people and their surroundings is of prime importance.

I would throw out the sense of nation, "good breeding," certain forms and ceremonies that govern relationships - perhaps even jealousy. We're not aware of all of them yet, though we suffer from them. And they mislead us not only about ethics but also about aesthetics.

I want my characters to suggest the background in themselves, even when it is not visible. I want them to be so powerfully realized that we cannot imagine them apart from their physical and social context even when we see them in empty space.

A woman's sex appeal is an inner matter. It stems from her mental make-up, basically. It's an attitude, not just a question of her physical features - that arrogant quality in a woman's femininity. Otherwise, all beautiful women would have sex appeal, which is not so.

A man who renounces something is also a man who believes in something.