One man writes a novel. One man writes a symphony. It is essential that one man make a film.

The feel of the experience is the important thing, not the ability to verbalize or analyze it.

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 very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. If it can be written or thought, it can be filmed.

Some people demand a five-line capsule summary. Something you'd read in a magazine. They want you to say, 'This is the story of the duality of man and the duplicity of governments.' I hear people try to do it -- give the five-line summary -- but if a film has any substance or subtlety, whatever you say is never complete, it's usually wrong, and it's necessarily simplistic: truth is too multifaceted to be contained in a five-line summary. If the work is good, what you say about it is usually irrelevant.

How does anybody ever think of anything?

The essence of dramatic form is to let an idea come over people without it being plainly stated. When you say something directly, it's simply not as potent as it is when you allow people to discover it for themselves.