When you finish work, practically everybody in that place is going to watch a movie at night anyway. They're tired. They have dinner. They go up to their room. They're watching TV.

Paris is a place where, for me, just walking down a street that I've never been down before is like going to a movie.

I don't think any of us are normal people.

Anytime I make a movie, I really have absolutely no idea how it's going to go over. I've had the whole range of different kinds of reactions.

I don't really look for challenges as much as I like adventures. Other than that I'm just trying to find stories I want to tell.

The movies I make tend not to be quite reality but the characters are inspired by real people and they're always very personal.

You don't do background music the way a lot of more conventional films do. The music is often kind of a character in your films to the extent that sometimes you stop and watch someone perform a song.

I just want to make films that are personal, but interesting to an audience.

I wouldn't say that I'm particularly bothered or obsessed with detail.

I love working with actors. That's what the set really is, for me. It's my time with the actors.

Some of the ideas are kind of inspired by the songs, and I always want to use music to tell the story and give the movie a certain kind of mood. That's always essential to me.

You will act like the sort of person you conceive yourself to be.

If you're going to plan a wedding, then a certain amount of suffering is not a choice.

I am a Soviet man, and Yeltsin is a Soviet man - maybe our grandchildren will be different.

In our particular society, it is the narrowed and narrowing view of life that often wins.

That's the illusion - the idea that you can be all right on the inside and not act it out - and it has affected us in many ways. That's a part of the idea that professing is enough.

Me and God we don't get along.

Actors are pretending for you, but they're not lying. They are not putting on a guise instead of themselves. They are finding things inside that they have experienced.

Getting lost along your path is a part of finding the path you are meant to be on.

When you smile you don't only appear to be more likable and courteous, you appear to be more competent.

We reform others unconsciously when we walk uprightly.