Human relationships are patterned and cross-patterned and restricted and limited and delimited and caged and freed again by the elaborate conventions, rules and games which we call civilisation. They're often absurd and farcical, and sometimes they're tragic, yet we acknowledge that they are necessary.

I think my films are always quite self-reflexive and always question 'why am I doing this, is this the right way to do it, what is cinema for, does it have a purpose?

Too many proofs spoil the truth.

If you never lived out your sexuality - it's a great force, and if you try to fight it, what does that create? Energy: positive and negative, self-loathing.

It seems so tragic to me that so many filmmakers are making movies up against this extra-ordinary revolution with one eye closed and two hands tied behind their backs.

We can have our own choices in sex partners, but you cannot avoid birth and death. It's the content of all religion and art. We familiarize them and if we're more honest, we'd be far more relaxed about them.

I have transmitted genetic material, all I have to do between my daughters' birth and my death is to decorate my life.