“I end up writing not from my own will, but from theirs-they come alive as I write and make me do things that I couldn’t have planned.”

I had wanted to make The Idiot long before Rashomon. Since I was little I’ve liked Russian literature, but I find that I like Dostoevsky the best and had long thought that this book would make a wonderful film.

Take me, subtract movies, and you get zero.

They don’t know it, but they’re losing nature. They don’t see that they’re going to perish. The most important things for human beings are clean air and clean water.

If you look at everything straight on, there is nothing to be afraid of.

By doing this I sense instantly when something isn’t right. Watching something does not mean fixing your gaze on it, but being aware of it in a natural way.

I like silent pictures and I always have … I wanted to restore some of this beauty. I thought of it, I remember in this way.

I simply do not like to show my weakness, and I hate to lose, so I am a person who tries hard. That’s all there is to me.

I’ve been able to work for so long because I think next time, I’ll make something good.

Page 61: No matter where I go in the world, although I can’t speak any foreign language.

Although human beings are incapable of talking about themselves with total honesty, it is much harder to avoid the truth while pretending to be other people.

In a mad world only the mad are sane.

Man is a genius when he is dreaming.

The characters in my films try to live honestly and make the most of the lives they’ve been given.

The great appeal of film is its relatability.

Human beings share the same common problems. A film can only be understood if it depicts these properly.

A film made in this spirit reveals the hearts of the crew.

Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.

For us there is only one wish to be adventurous pioneers and find ourselves at the end.

When you write me into your story, don’t set my end in stone. Feel free to let me go. I’d like to join your story, but remember I have my own.

Time began when you were born. It will end when you die.

If only we knew which goodbyes were our last.

To exercise no-thought and rest in nothing is the first step toward resting in Tao. To start from nowhere and follow no road is the first step toward attaining Tao.

In the end, what matters is how you lived your life. Were you happy? Did you love enough? Did you reach for the stars?

Maybe not this year or the next but one day they’d end up married. In this lifetime and every one after it. Just knowing that I’d get to watch them find each other and fall in love in every life made me smile.