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.

Often to understand, we have to look into emptiness.

It's obvious that I must explain what I want from an actor, but I don't want to discuss everything I ask him to do, because often my requests are completely instinctive and there are things I can't explain. It's like painting: You don't know why you use pink instead of blue. You simply feel that's how it should be - pink. Then the phone rings and you answer it. When you come back, you don't want pink anymore and you use blue - without knowing why. You can't help it; that's just the way it is.

The public buys "art" - but the word is drained of its meaning.

When man becomes reconciled to nature, when space becomes his true background, these words and concepts will have lost their meaning, and we will no longer have to use them.

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.

I may film scenes I had no intention of filming; things suggest themselves on location, and we improvise. I try not to think about it too much. Then, in the cutting room, I take the film and start to put it together, and only then do I begin to get an idea of what it is about.