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.

When you're young, you keep reading new writers and you keep changing your mind about how you ought to sound.

Every man is the author of his own life.

Movies are not novels, and that's why, when filmmakers try to adapt novels, particularly long or complex novels, the result is almost always failure. It can't be done.

Stories happen only to those who are able to tell them, someone once said. In the same way, perhaps, experiences present themselves only to those who are able to have them.

When I think of Tokyo Story, yeah, it is like a novella. That doesn't mean it's not great. Some of my favorite Tolstoy works are his novellas.

I do not repeat conversations that I can't remember. And it's something that irritates me a great deal, because I think most memoirs are false novels.