So I left with Jean Claude and went to Paris, so when the Russians came to Prague, I was in Paris.

What I like about masturbation is that you don't have to talk afterwards.

People must not think that all bad in man which is unleashed, the moment you impose censorship disappears from man.

Well, listen, you know, the Czech saying is, you know, when you are drowning you are grabbing even a little twig. That's what all Czechs were doing, grabbing for... with the hope for this little twig.

For me, speaking is work. It's not like when you breathe.

Ideological pressure is much more crippling than commercial pressure. Crippling to your own freedom of thinking and creating, crippling the final results. If you wanted to succeed during the really hard-line totalitarian regime, you have to make so many compromises to please the censors that you don't recognize the original idea from the final result.

First of all, to defend my work, I had to believe that I am doing a totally silly, stupid, innocent comedy.