My distinguishing talent is the ability to put people under the microscope, perhaps to go one or two layers farther down than some other directors.

I’m first and foremost interested in the story, the characters.

I think people remember pictures not dialogue. That’s why I like pictures.

Don’t make jokes about food.

Film is a dramatised reality and it is the director’s job to make it appear real… an audience should not be conscious of technique.

I’ve just begun to dare to think I perhaps am a bit of an artist.

[But he earned particular attention in Hollywood for his tenacity in making the grand-scale] A Passage to India, … the most difficult thing of my life.

I rather like mysteries. But I do dislike muddles.