In general, I have some precise ideas about everything, because the film is completed in my head before we ever start shooting. With casting, I am always present, even for the smallest character.

It's always more interesting and more difficult to make something positive than negative. To be negative is very easy.

For me, the most important word in cinema is the word freedom. For example, in Europe, we've got freedom, we've got the final cut and that's something which is marvellous.

I like the cinema of people like Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton. I am not keen on trying to reproduce reality - for that you should do documentaries.

I believe in imagination. I was a worker when I was 17. Between 17 and 21, I was a worker in the telephone company and imagination saved my life.

It's always been pretty easy for me to exercise my imagination. The other part of the brain, the one that does mathematics, is a nightmare for me. It doesn't work at all.

I've never made any concessions, so I am 100% responsible for my films. This makes me feel very proud.

All day my mind drifts off into fantasies and little stupid jokes.

In the States, I learned to fight for every idea. Sometimes, a director has to be a tyrant to keep the quality.

If you make the right choice in casting, your work is nearly done already. You don't have to spend a lot of time directing the actors, because they're so well suited to the parts.

I like looking back at people's faces in the dark. I like noticing details that no one else sees. But I hate it in the old American movies when drivers don't watch the road.

When I got untethered from the comfort of religion, it wasn't a loss of faith for me, it was a discovery of Self.

A terrorist is the most foolish and naïve. He is drunk with fixed false beliefs that killing his neighbors will result in going to heaven.

Taking care of yourself is the most powerful way to begin to take care of others.

You can get samosas in any pub in England today, pretty much. So, "Gunga Din" has come back.

People exaggerate Corruption in Nigeria. It is not even our first or second problem, maybe the third

The wilderness does not make you forget your normal life so much as it removes the distractions for proper remembering.

If you don't do something special against Chris Evert you find yourself losing concentration after 35 shots.

I think being a foreigner and talking about Hollywood allowed me to use some cliches and some references that an American would maybe not use.

I'm playin' the music I like.

If you haven't written a novel by the time you're forty you never will!