“I think being someone in love is so hard to define, so temporary, because retrospectively we often deny the state in which we were in love.”

A work of art doesn’t exist outside the perception of the audience.

The film [Close Up] made itself, to a large extent. The characters involved were very real, I wasn’t directing the actors so much as being directed by them. So it was a very particular film.

In order to be able to cooperate with a child, you have to come down to below their level in order to communicate with them. Actors are also like children.

I think Woody Allen is Woody Allen, and no matter where he goes he still makes his Woody Allen films.

The digital camera has given me total freedom and a different way of filming.

Therefore, when you see the end result, it’s difficult to see who’s the director, me or them. Ultimately, everything belongs to the actors – we just manage the situation.

Maybe more than a teller, I am a story listener. I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind. All of my films are a collection of small stories that have been told to me.

Religion works on some people but not on everyone, because it says, ‘Stop thinking and accept what I tell you.’ That’s not valid for people who want to think and reflect.

It’s true that the best way of knowing yourself is to put yourself into different situations.

Anything I’ve not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.

Children are very strong and independent characters and can come up with more interesting things than Marlon Brando, and it’s sometimes very difficult to direct or order them to do something.

I have no advice for anyone on how to live.

I prefer the countryside to cities. This is also true of my films: I have made more films in rural societies, and villages, than in towns.

I thought that I had been asked every kind of question possible.

When I’m in the process of making a movie I’m not thinking about the finished result, and whether people have to see it once or more than once, and what the reaction to it will be. I just make it, and then I live with the consequences.

In my mind, there isn’t as much of a distinction between documentary and fiction as there is between a good movie and a bad one.

In performing experiments, it is necessary… that they be simplified as much as possible, and that every circumstance that could complicate the results should be completely removed.

Just one living cell in the human body is, more complex than New York City.

The art of drawing conclusions from experiments and observations consists in evaluating probabilities and in estimating whether they are sufficiently great or numerous enough to constitute proofs. This kind of calculation is more complicated and more difficult than it is commonly thought to be.

It is essential to understand our brains in some detail if we are to assess correctly our place in this vast and complicated universe we see all around us.

I think the reason people are dealing with science less well now than 50 years ago is that it has become so complicated.

I believe all complicated phenomena can be explained by simpler scientific principles.

You’re only complicated to a man who simply wants to fuck you.

Don’t want a complicated love. Just want you to grab my demons, kiss my madness and run away with me.