I considered that the homes that people live in exactly describe their lives.

If I couldn't read, I couldn't live.

My idea at this time, which was slowly developing, was to create a comedie humaine with little people, average people - samples from every period in American life.

You have the opportunity to make a tremendous impact on the lives of the people with whom you work and live. Make the most of it.

And in movies you must be a gambler. To produce films is to gamble.

In the 19th century, you had bourgeois art without politics - an almost frozen idea of what beauty is.