As long as movies are depressing, life isn't.

I detest the idea that love between two persons can lead to salvation. All my life I have fought against this oppressive type of relationship. Instead, I believe in searching for a kind of love that somehow involves all of humanity.

People often criticize my films for being pessimistic; there are certainly many reasons for being pessimistic but I don’t see my films that way. They’re founded in the belief that revolution doesn’t belong on the cinema screen but outside in the world. Never mind if a film ends pessimistically but exposes certain mechanisms clearly enough to show people how they work and the ultimate effect is not pessimistic. My goal is to reveal such mechanisms in a way that makes people realize the necessity of changing their own reality.

It isn't easy to accept that suffering can also be beautiful... it's difficult. It's something you can only understand if you dig deeply into yourself.

The more real things get, the more like myths they become.

In the last analysis, terrorism is an idea generated by capitalism to justify better defense measures to safeguard capitalism.

Love is the best, most insidious, most effective instrument of social repression.