“A created thing is never invented and it is never true: it is always and ever itself.”

“A different language is a different vision of life.”

“A good opening and a good ending make for a good film provide they come close together.”

“All art is autobiographical. The pearl is the oyster's autobiography.”

“Censorship is advertising paid by the government.”

“Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me.”

“Experience is what you get while looking for something else.”

“Fate is written in the face.”

“God may not play dice but he enjoys a good round of Trivial Pursuit every now and again.”

“Hype is the awkward and desperate attempt to convince journalists that what you've made is worth the misery of having to review it.”

“I always direct the same film. I cannot distinguish one from the other.”

“I am not the kind of director who sits in a chair smoking a cigar talking with a microphone to 10 assistants. I need to move. To touch. To put a painting on a wall. To arrange a set.”

“I think television has betrayed the meaning of democratic speech, adding visual chaos to the confusion of voices. What role does silence have in all this noise?”

“If you do what you were born to do, I think you will never grow old.”

“If you see with innocent eyes, everything is divine.”

“In 'Roma,' I wanted to get across the idea that underneath Rome today is ancient Rome. So close. I am always conscious of that, and it thrills me. Imagine being in a traffic jam at the Coliseum! Rome is the most wonderful movie set in the world... As was the case with many of my film ideas, it was inspired by a dream.”

“It is only when I am doing my work that I feel truly alive.”

“It's easier to be faithful to a restaurant than it is to a woman.”

“Money is everywhere but so is poetry. What we lack are the poets.”

“Nietzsche claimed that his genius was in his nostrils and I think that is a very excellent place for it to be.”

“No critic writing about a film could say more than the film itself, although they do their best to make us think the oppposite.”

“Realism is a bad word. In a sense everything is realistic. I see no line between the imaginary and the real.”

“The artist is the medium between his fantasies and the rest of the world.”

“There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the passion of life.”

“When I start a picture, I always have a script, but I change it every day. I put in what occurs to me that day out of my imagination. You start on a voyage; you know where you will end up but not what will occur along the way. You want to be surprised.”

“You exist only in what you do.”