Jean Renoir Quotes

A Director Makes Only One Movie in His Life. Then He Breaks It Into Pieces and Makes It Again.

When a friend speaks to me, whatever he says is interesting.

The saving grace of the cinema is that with patience, and a little love, we may arrive at that wonderfully complex creature which is called man.

The foundation of all civilization is loitering.

The awful thing about life is this: everyone has their reasons.

A film director is not a creator, but a midwife. His business is to deliver the actor of a child that he did not know he had inside him.

Is it possible to succeed without any act of betrayal?

The only things that are important in life are the things you remember.

The advantage of being eighty years old is that one has many people to love.

I am against great themes and great subjects... You can't film an idea. The camera is an instrument for recording physical impact.

There is no realism in American films. No realism, but something much better, great truth.

I believe that perfection handicaps cinema.

The real hell of life is that everyone has his reasons.

Nature is millions of things. And there are millions of ways of understanding its preoccupations.

Everyone has his reasons.

You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons.

A director makes only one movie in his life. Then he breaks it up and makes it again.

The real hell of life is everyone has his reasons.

The truly terrible thing is that everybody has their reasons.