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

I don’t like reverse-angle shots – I find them very fake and very untruthful to the viewer.

In my opinion the man looks at the relationship in a more bitter fashion and the woman still holds great hopes.

With the RED, I didn’t have this impression at all. I felt that it was as heavy as a film camera. Having this great crew, with the DP and his assistants, I found it making as much of an impression as a very big film camera.

It’s not so much a question of whether we’ve shot it through 35mm or digital video; what is important is whether the audience accepts it as real.

I think life is so difficult to catch, it’s so furtive, that a copy, a film, can in no way catch it and represent it.

My films have been progressing towards a certain kind of minimalism, even though it was never intended. Elements which can be eliminated have been eliminated.

Film is very much a universal and common voice, and we can’t limit it to one particular culture.

I never really learned photography.

In real life, when someone’s partner calls them, they can tell from the first word their partner says what their mood is.

Cinema gives you the opportunity to be both a grandparent and a grandchild whereas in life you cannot be both at the same time.

As long as I take the responsibility of the choice, I have to make the choice that is as right as possible.

There were years when Hitchcock was like a master to me, but now I think he’s so artificial. I can watch films and say how technically beautiful they are, but I’m not impressed by any technicality.

I did not have a script [of Close Up]. I made notes in the evenings and we filmed during the day over 40 days.I didn’t sleep a wink for those 40 nights.

Silence doesn’t seem heavy or difficult.

I would be too selfish if I said everyone should see my movies more than once. To say that would mean I’m just marketing my work!

It seems that film-makers are being divided between those working in digital and those who are not. I think it’s not something predetermined – it all depends on what project we have in mind, and on that basis we choose the medium.

I became a welder. I was actually becoming an Engineer and I joined the wrong queue. And so I became a welder, without knowing what a welder was.

To me, activism requires you to try very hard to open your eyes to the world as it is. See as much as you can, knowing that whatever you see is going to be partial. That you possess a partial consciousness in an infinite and expanding universe.

I suppose it’s knowing when you’ve come up with an idea that works, when you’ve got it right, whatever it is.

Before I start a company, I always invest at least one year to knowing that sector thoroughly. I research about almost everything related to that business – competition, market potential, revenue model, legal and regulatory obligations, among other aspects.

The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.

It was one of the most exciting, perfect evenings of my life, my solo debut at Carnegie Hall. And knowing we were all there to raise money for Gay Men’s Health Crisis made the evening an extraordinary experience.

Historical judgement is not a variety of knowledge, it is knowledge itself; it is the form which completely fills and exhausts the field of knowing, leaving no room for anything else.

To despise theory is to have the excessively vain pretension to do without knowing what one does, and to speak without knowing what one says.