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

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 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.

It is the power of memory that gives rise to the power of imagination.

There is something that might be called cinematic beauty. It can only be expressed in a film, and it must be present for that film to be a moving work.

One of techniques of modern art is simplification, and that I must therefore simplify this film.

It is to make it nurture and grow that I write my script- it is directing it that makes my tree blossom and bear fruit.

It has perhaps always been the case that the waging of peace is the hardest form of leadership of all.

For me, it’s always been so obvious that the less we can edit our lives and more we show how normal we all are, the better.

I’ve been musically inclined since I picked up an instrument in the fourth grade. I just really appreciate music.

Mythology can be used, and has been used, even to re-state, you know, the very urgent problems of the world.

I think it’s so interesting which ways your career can go. I would have been a completely different actor doing a completely different story, and I would have missed ‘Lady Macbeth.’

I have been aware all the time that my peoples, spread far and wide throughout every continent and ocean in the world, were united to support me in the task to which I have now been dedicated with such solemnity.

And I’ve been wearing specs since I was three.

It’s been a journey, the NBA. It’s taken me a lot farther than I ever expected.