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

Usually you don't think about re-releasing an old movie.

Communists love to make films about composers, because composers compose music and don't talk subversive things.

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.

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.

I lived long enough in a society where freedom of speech was nonexistent, and I know what kind of misery that creates - starting with the fact that life becomes very boring for people who just try to survive, and are quiet, and try not to buck the system. And, of course, it can be devastating for people who try to speak against it.

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