The artist can't give you an answer that's satisfying to the dreadful reality of your existence. So the best you can do is maybe entertain people and refresh them for an hour-and-a-half.

[Stanley] Kubrick was a great artist and a perfectionist. He always wanted the exact right thing. He did a million takes. Everything had to be perfect. I'm an imperfectionist. I don't really care that much about the work. I write quickly. I'm careless. I shoot carelessly.

I was raised in the Jewish tradition, taught never to marry a Gentile woman, shave on a Saturday night and, most especially, never to shave a Gentile woman on a Saturday night.

As I got more confident, I was able to let actors improvise, and do long takes. It's 10%, 5% you learn and experience. The rest you just have or you don't have.

You'll live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to.

By now they had mastered my own language, but they still made simple mistakes, like using 'hermeneutics,' when they meant 'heuristic'.

American films, it's a money-making industry. And in France, you can find great respect for cinema as art.