“They weren’t frightening at all. I’m sure they’d be very funny now.”

I can’t see any reason why a film shouldn’t be stylized and visually beautiful. I don’t think a beautiful set is pretentious.

For some reason the more time that elapses after the film opens, the more favorable the reviews become.

We should all die with a sharp, brusque heart attack. My father was lucky like that.

There cannot be any communication except through form. If there is no form, you cannot create emotion in the spectator.

When I was 12 I made some little films with my friends. I tried to make gangster films, like Fantomas, but I remember being very disappointed with them.

It was repugnant, but it was the only way to communicate.

A viewer as opposed to a filmmaker might see a film differently. But I’m extremely comfortable with my style.

When I was twelve, the passage from silent film to the talkies had an impact on me-I still watch silent films.

I saw part of The Singing Detective on TV in New York. I said, Something is going on here.

So I used formal techniques to make the film more perceptive emotionally.

My films seem to be better understood and better received by the monthly publications

For me an unfavorable initial reaction happens fairly often.

. On television the first reactions are usually unfavorable.

I don’t think that there is any such thing as an old film; you don’t say, ‘I read an old book by Flaubert,’ or ‘I saw an old play by Moliere.’

I never had any special appetite for filmmaking, but you have to make a living and it is miraculous to earn a living working in film.

I am never driven. Every film Ive made has been an assignment.

It is music that causes the heart to broaden and the listener to grow cold with ecstasy and fright.

I once wrote a story about a writer who could not write anymore, and my friend Tennessee Williams said, ‘How could you dare write that story, it’s the most frightening work I have ever read.’ I was pretty well sunk while I was writing it.

We have become frighteningly effective at altering nature.

When a herd of cattle see a strange object, they are not satisfied till each one has sniffed it; and the horse is cured of his fright at the robe, or the meal-bag, or other object, as soon as he can be induced to smell it.

I love the way they run in fright when I turn on the kitchen light. And when I squish them on the ground, they make a pleasant crunchy sound.

People ask me if I have stage fright. I say, “God, no, I’m completely comfortable there. I have rest-of-the-day fright.”

A lot of people can’t be on their own. They get frightened. Isolation doesn’t bother me at all. It gives me a sense of security.

I have stage fright every single concert I’ve ever done. I have at least four or five minutes of it. It’s absolute living hell.