Everyone has understood me in his own way. But I would have to understand myself first in order to judge - and so far, I haven't.

It isn't easy to understand the lives of people different from your own.

I forget about the relationship between myself and any actress when working with her.

I can't give any absolute definition of what love is, or even whether it ought to exist.

I began taking liberties a long time ago; now it is standard practice for most directors to ignore the rules.

A particular type of film emerged from World War Two, with the Italian neorealist school. It was perfectly right for its time, which was as exceptional as the reality around us. Our major interest focused on that and on how we could relate to it. Later, when the situation normalized and post-war life returned to what it had been in peacetime, it became important to see the intimate, interior consequences of all that had happened.

Everyone has understood me in his own way. But I would have to understand myself first in order to judge - and so far, I haven't.