My work is like digging, it's archaeological research among the arid materials of our times. That's how I understand my first films, and that's what I'm still doing...

I never feel empty. I travel a lot and I think about other films.

I'm not rich and maybe I'll never be rich. Money is useful - yes - but I don't worship it.

Life should be taken ironically; otherwise, it becomes a tragedy.

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.

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.

Sometimes actors' mistakes give me ideas I can use, because mistakes are always sincere, absolutely sincere.