To decide to film a movie again shot by shot, you must be masochistic to a certain degree because it is a much greater challenge.

Classicism becomes avant-garde when everyone else is doing their utmost to develop new stylistic forms. I think it's healthy to return to classical forms.

I give the spectator the possibility of participating. The audience completes the film by thinking about it; those who watch must not be just consumers ingesting spoon-fed images.

Film is simply the most complex way you can express yourself

I'm not really a happy person. It's a question of temperament. I have a tendency toward melancholy. You can feel quite happily melancholic.

An artist is someone who should raise questions rather than give answers. I have no message.

If I tell the audience what they should think, then I am robbing them of their own imagination and their own capacity of deciding what's important to them.

I don't need a psychiatrist. I can sort out my fears with my work. That's the privilege of all artists, to be able to sort out their unhappiness and their neuroses in order to create something.

I try to get closer to reality, to get close to the contradictions. The cinema world can be a real world rather than a dream world.

Drama lives on conflict. If you're trying to deal with social issues seriously, there's no way of avoiding violence, which is so present in society.

Film is 24 lies per second at the service of truth, or at the service of the attempt to find the truth.

It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to infidelity.

I love to talk to flowers. They are sensitive. And sometimes I just want to have couple of wings and fly away... Will you ever notice?

Temperate men drink the most, because they drink the longest.

And I was going to be damned if I was older than Batman.

The best calumnies are spiced with truth.

Pelosi's problem is her spine doesn't reach her brain.

I love playing characters who are opposite of who I am.

Express gratitude for what your spouse does for you. Express that love and gratitude often.

Obama's an angry guy. He's got a chip on his shoulder.

Faith is a never-ending pool of clarity, reaching far beyond the margins of consciousness. We all know more than we know we know.