There are only two things one has to bear in mind. One has to be credulous - able to believe - and skeptical - able to not believe, because if you are not skeptical, you will believe rubbish. If you are not credulous you will learn nothing and the only way to balance those two is to recognize the mystery of things.

I did quite enjoy the days when one went for a beer at one's local in Paris and woke up in Corsica.

It is time for me to chuck in the sponge. To retire from films and stage. The heart for it has gone out of me: it won't come back.

If you do not surrender, I shall be forced to shoot you through the head with a rather large bullet.

Many years ago I sent an old, beloved jacket to a cleaner, the Sycamore Cleaners. It was a leather jacket covered in Guinness and blood and marmalade, one of those jobs... and it came back with a little note pinned to it, and on the note it said, 'It distresses us to return work which is not perfect.' So that will do for me. That can go on my tombstone.

You talk about auteur de cinema having things in their heads and putting them all across, can you imagine Shakespeare writing screenplays?

In the theater you can chain a blue-assed baboon in the stalls and with a good script, good actors, and a good set you'd have what is called a production. With the cinema someone has to know about lenses and fine things. I have no time for the "auteur de cinema." To me, it's meaningless.