I tell you, in my opinion, the cornerstone of democracy is free press - that's the cornerstone.

Definitely it would be foolish to try and make my Czech films here in America, as foolish as it is when some Czech filmmakers try to make movies of America in Czechoslovakia. It was always abysmal stuff.

You know what happened, you know, in 1938: France, England, you know, just sold out Czechoslovakia to Hitler.

The Czech movies, the quality movies, are trying to show the life in the country as it is, in an entertaining way, while in America, the majority of movies are wonderful fairy tales.

The worst evil is - and that's the product of censorship - is the self-censorship, because that twists spines, that destroys my character because I have to think something else and say something else, I have to always control myself.

I'm convinced the Beatles are partly responsible for the fall of Communism.

People who make documentaries have to be faithful to the facts. But when you are making a drama, a fiction based on the life, all you have to be faithful to is the spirit of the facts, which I think I was in every case. As long as you don't violate their spirit, you can play with the facts.