I don't believe in the deplorable notion of realism in the cinema: you can over-reach it, and it becomes as false as convention.

There's no such thing as history, only historians. That's how we know about the past.

Creation, to me, is to try to orchestrate the universe to understand what surrounds us. Even if, to accomplish that, we use all sorts of strategems which in the end prove completely incapable of staving off chaos.

Churchill was a good writer but a bad historian.

On the other hand, I view the whole matter from a cosmic perspective. I don't take a position. I believe that there are no more positions to take, no certainties, no facts. Many people find this confusing about my films; they say I am hiding out behind irony. But from a cosmic viewpoint, it is eternally unimportant whether one lives or not.

The pretence that numbers are not the humble creation of man, but are the exacting language of the Universe and therefore possess the secret of all things, is comforting, terrifying and mesmeric.

I don't want to become an ivory tower filmmaker. That sounds peculiar, but I want to be a mainstream filmmaker. I want the largest possible audience that I can find - but, of course, on my terms.