All the characters in my films are fighting these problems, needing freedom, trying to find a way to cut themselves loose, but failing to rid themselves of conscience, a sense of sin, the whole bag of tricks.

My films have always had an element of immediate autobiography, in that I shoot any particular scene according to the mood I'm in that day, according to the little daily experiences I've had and am having - but I don't tell what has happened to me. I would like to do something more strictly autobiographical, but perhaps I never will, because it isn't interesting enough.

You cannot penetrate events with reportage.

We live in a society that compels us to go on using these concepts, and we no longer know what they mean.

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

I dislike judging myself, but I will say I would be wealthy today if I had accepted all the films that have been offered to me with large sums of money. But I've always refused, in order to do what I felt like doing.

I've made films about the middle classes because I know them best. Everyone talks about what he knows best.