Chance is an element of life. What I try to do is study what I call the mechanics of reality as carefully as I can.

Actually, screenplays were much more detailed than what I did in the book In the book I had to invent a style for communicating what the sensation of looking at a film would be, whereas the screenplays I wrote in Paris were actual blueprints for how to do the film, with every gesture, every little movement noted in exhaustive detail.

In fact, writing, especially writing autobiographical works, and this is actually the fourth time I've done it, each time I've done it I've felt deeply immersed in the material as I'm doing it, and then it's over and everything is the same.

If the world weren't such a beautiful place, we might all turn into cynics

The most deeply personal of my works are the non-fiction works, the autobiographical works, because there, I'm talking about myself very directly.

Generally, I don't want to do things. I feel lazy and unmotivated. It's only when an idea grabs hold of me and I can't get rid of it, when I try not to think about it and yet it's ambushing me all the time. I'm thrown up against a wall. The idea is saying to me, "You have to pay attention to me because I am going to be the future of your life for the next year or two or five." Then I submit. I get into it. It's something that becomes so necessary to me that I can't live without doing that project.

Every man is the author of his own life.