I try and create for the audience something that relates to real-life experience.

When I was young I used to sit in the cinema thinking wouldn't it be great if you could have a film in which the characters were like real people instead of being like actors.

Given the choice of Hollywood or poking steel pins in my eyes, I'd prefer steel pins.

I hope I make films where you walk away . . . with work to do, arguments to have, things to worry about, things to care about. In that sense, I would regard what I do as political.

My work is about life as you and I experience it. You're either lucky or you're not lucky; either your relationship works or it doesn't.

But films should be voyeuristic. What else is a film if you’re not snooping into somebody else’s lives?

There's a constant drip and trickle of life that goes into one's awareness really and consciousness of things.

I discover what my film is by embarking on the journey of making it.

The way an actor is trained doesn't ultimately have much bearing on my work. I'm interested in the actor as artist.

It's an unhealthy habit to say that life is what you make of it, and if you want to be happy, then you can be happy. That's just rubbish, basically.

Given the events of even the 19th century, Zionism was inevitable. Given the events of the 20th century, Israel was inevitable.

Well, dating has become a sport and not about finding the person you love.

Horror causes men to clench their fists, and in horror men join together.

The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.

A man falling into dark waters seeks a momentary footing even on sliding stones.

Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat.

Everyone is entitled to his own nostalgia.

Show gratitude. Gratitude is a simple but powerful thing.

When God wanted a city levelled, or all the first-born slaughtered in one night, he sent an angel.

When mind is still, then truth gets her chance to be heard in the purity of the silence.

Sometimes you have go into a movie and develop a certain type of chemistry with your co-stars. Sometimes it can click from "Hello" and other times it takes a few weeks to develop that.