When I am shooting a film I never think of how I want to shoot something; I simply shoot it.

Women are a finer filter of reality. They can sniff things.

I've never had a method of working. I change according to circumstances; I don't employ any particular technique or style. I make films instinctively, more with my belly than with my brain.

You can't go to an LSD or pot party unless you take it yourself. If I want to go, I must take drugs myself.

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.

Favourite directors change, like favorite authors. I had a passion for Gide and Stein and Faulkner. But now they're no use to me anymore. I've assimilated them - so, enough, they are a closed chapter. This also applies to film directors.

Violence is not the only means of persuasion.