“I have made an art form of the interview. The French are the best interviewers, despite their addiction to the triad, like all Cartesians.”

Human nature is eternal; therefore one who follows his nature keeps his original nature, in the end.

Working is part of life, I don’t know how to distinguish between the two. Work is an expression of life.

There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror.

Ignorance sheer ignorance. There is no confidence to equal it. It’s only when you know something about a profession that you are timid or careful.

My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.

I’m never certain of a performance – my own or the other actors’ – or the script or anything. But to me it seems there’s only one place in the world the camera can be, and the decision usually comes immediately.

Future shock is a sickness which comes from too much change in too short a time. It’s the feeling that nothing is permanent anymore.

I’ve spent most of my mature life trying to prove that I’m not irresponsible.

The Godfather’ was the glorification of a bunch of bums who never existed.

If I ever own a restaurant, I will never allow the waiters to ask if the diners like their dishes. Particularly when they’re talking.

My kind of director is an actor-director who writes.

A director is someone who presides over a series of accidents.

I’m one of those fellows so frightened of driving that I go 80 miles an hour – and the more frightened I get, the faster I go.

The director is the most overrated artist in the world. He is the only artist who, with no talent whatsoever, can be a success for 50 years without his lack of talent ever being discovered.

The most personal thing I’ve put in [Touch of Evil] is my hatred of the abuse of police power. It’s better to see a murderer go free than for a policeman to abuse his power.

The camera is much more than a recording apparatus, it is a medium via which messages reach us from another world.

Art is both the taking and giving of beauty, the turning out to the light of the inner folds of the awareness of the spirit.

You don’t take a photograph, you make it.

Creativity is a continual surprise.

The artist and the photographer seek the mysteries and the adventure of experience in nature.

Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?

With all art expression, when something is seen, it is a vivid experience, sudden, compelling, and inevitable.

Art is a nation’s most precious heritage. For it is in our works of art that we reveal to ourselves and to others the inner vision which guides us as a nation. And where there is no vision, the people perish.

Impression is not enough. Design, style, technique – these, too, are not enough. Art must reach further than impression or self-revelation .