“To be an artist means to search, to find and look at these realities. To be an artist means to never look away.”

Something that you should take particular notice of is the fact that the best scripts have very few explanatory passages.

People today have forgotten they’re really just a part of nature. Yet, they destroy the nature on which our lives depend. They always think they can make something better…

I like unformed characters. This may be because, no matter how old I get, I am still unformed myself.

In order to find reality, each must search for his own universe, look for the details that contribute to this reality7 that one feels under the surface of things.

Adding explanation to the descriptive passages of a screenplay is the most dangerous trap you can fall into.

The terrible thing is that people who are madmen in private may wear a totally bland and innocent expression in public.

Man is a genius when he dreams. Dream what you are capable of. The harder you dream it, the sooner it will come true.

The root of any film project for me is this inner need to express something.

Of all my films, people wrote to me most about this one.

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.

America stands for individual liberty, but that means an ordered liberty.

The physical body is not only a temple for our soul, but the means by which we embark on the inward journey toward the core.

There is but one means available to improve the material conditions of mankind: to accelerate the growth of capital accumulated as against the growth in population.

To me YES, AND means don’t be afraid to contribute. Always make sure you’re adding something to the discussion. Your initiations are worthwhile.

If you actually look at the etymology of the word ‘hallucination’, what it’s come to mean in English is a delusion. But what it really means in the original language is to wander in the mind. That’s the meaning of ‘hallucination’, to wander in the mind.

Socialism is not spontaneous. It does not arise of itself. It has abiding principles according to which the major means of production and distribution ought to be socialised if exploitation of the many by the few is to be prevented; if, that is to say, egalitarianism in the economy is to be protected.

If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself.

I mean that everything this afternoon has been too beautiful, and that perhaps everything together will never be so right again. I’m very glad therefore you’ve been a part of it.