I have been in lots of very intense life situations. I have been shot at, and I have been hungry, and I have been in solitude, and I have also briefly been behind bars. So in a way, I know the heart of men.

The opinion of the public is sacred. The director is a cook who merely offers different dishes to them and has no right to insist they react in a particular way. A film is just a projection of light, completed only when it crosses the gaze of the audience[...]

If you’re purely after facts, please buy yourself the phone directory of Manhattan. It has four million times correct facts. But it doesn’t illuminate.

I don't care whether the person is guilty or not guilty. It's not my business to establish guilt or innocence. It's a court of law that does that and a jury does that, but not me.

Our presence on this planet does not seem to be sustainable. Our technical civilization makes up particularly vulnerable. There is talk all over the scientific community about climate change. Many of them [scientists] agree, the end of human life on earth is assured.

I run my own film school, the Rogue Film School, and I do it over three and a half days, eight hours non-stop everyday; alone, single-handedly. But the difference is in the Rogue Film School I do have real human beings in front of me from all over the world, and of course there's this course as well, they can ask, talk about their problems and obstacles, finances, anything, you just name it. Whereas in the Masterclass, you are speaking to cameras.

For such an advanced civilization as ours to be without images that are adequate to it is as serious a defect as being without memory.