My discussion is one that has gone all the way from Fistful of Dollars through Once Upon a Time in America. But if you look closely at all these films, you find in them the same meanings, the same humor, the same point of view, and, also, the same pains.

I never worry about what they think about me. Because I feel so far away from what my Italian colleagues have done that I almost automatically become an isolated director.

I am searching as Diogenes did with his lantern for all of these wonderful human beings. I haven't found them yet.

I was born in 1929, and in the 50 years from 1930 to 1980, I've been able to live an unbelievably varied century. Before, you could never have seen such intense change in a 50-year span.

It's very difficult to be original.

Whoever would like to look and see what someone is saying behind all the show, glitter, scenery, whatever it may be, and see what ideas are being expressed beyond and below and above that, can do that, as well.

I've always believed that true cinema is cinema of the imagination.