When I made my first film, I think the thing was probably helped me the most was that it was such an unusual thing to do in the early 50s for someone who actually go and make a film. People thought it was impossible. It really is terribly easy. All anybody needs is a camera, a tape recorder, and some imagination.

All my life I've always spoiled the things that meant the most to me.

In any case, once you're dealing on a nonverbal level, ambiguity is unavoidable. But it's the ambiguity of all art, of a fine piece of music or a painting - you don't need written instructions by the composer or painter accompanying such works to 'explain' them. “Explaining” them contributes nothing but a superficial 'cultural' value which has no value except for critics and teachers who have to earn a living.

The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.

If you can talk brilliantly about a problem

There are few things more fundamentally encouraging and stimulating than seeing someone else die.

Critical opinion on my films has always been salvaged by what I would call subsequent critical opinion.