If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.
The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.
If you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn’t call it genius.
Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I accomplish.
Read the heart and not the letter for the pen cannot draw near the good intent.
Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.
When I am shooting a film I never think of how I want to shoot something; I simply shoot it.
A film that can be described in words is not really a film.
We know that behind every image revealed there is another image more faithful to reality, and in the back of that image there is another, and yet another behind the last one, and so on, up to the true image of that absolute, mysterious reality that no one will ever see.
A man who renounces something is also a man who believes in something.
I think people talk too much; that’s the truth of the matter. I do. I don’t believe in words. People use too many words and usually wrongly. I am sure that in the distant future people will talk much less and in a more essential way. If people talk a lot less, they will be happier. Don’t ask me why.
A scene has to have a rhythm of its own, a structure of its own.
When a scene is being shot, it is very difficult to know what one wants it to say, and even if one does know, there is always a difference between what one has in mind and the result on film.