When you create a movie, you create something in your image.

I make movies just as painters paint: I work where I can.

When a French book becomes an international hit it is because of the author and not because of the language. The same goes for movies.

The financing of my films has always been international.

When you create a movie, you create something in your image.

Today's cinema is a global art form, it is impossible to make movies for a market the size of France, representing no more than 4% of the world's total.

When Picasso painted in Paris, was he a Spanish or a French painter? It does not matter, he was Picasso, whatever the influences surrounding him. He simply chose Paris because it was the ideal place for him to sell his creation.

When Americans shoot movies they aim at the entire planet. When the French make movies, they aim at Paris.

I had to choose between American and British actors, and it didn't take me more than a second to decide: Russians are Europeans and should be played by other Europeans.

My way of remaining French was the financing scheme I used for Quest for Fire, with Fox funds, since it started as a 100% American production. The film was not in French and yet was French in style, reflecting my personality.

The French have got to understand that a film is so expensive that it can no longer afford to be regional or even national in scope.

The art of motion pictures is pictorial and language comes a distant second.

War scenes are less difficult than love scenes.

The world distribution of French movies is a laughing matter. That is a fact.

To do the writing, I have to have time to do research.

There is a broad cultural current that conveys the idea that a film is like a football team, it represents a nation, it is illustrated literature, filmed radio. These are outdated concepts, totally out of touch with today's realities.

British actors behave like Europeans; they are also extremely well trained.

If you make a movie about Elizabeth I, how much of the dialogue is her real words? Audiences know when they go see a movie that it is fiction.

America is the only country capable of producing national movies: its culture has become a global culture.

I think it is a mistake to identify a movie according to its language, as if movies were literature.

Our goal is to make the best devices in the world, not to be the biggest.

If you don't take the chance to live life, what can you say at the end of it?

The difference between management and administration (which is what bureaucrats used to do exclusively) is the difference between choice and rigidity.

American official policy is that Egypt is an ally of the United States.

I am cool.

I did a lot of freelance desk publishing jobs when I graduated from college. I sort of earned a living doing that while I was writing plays, which was what I wanted to do. My hope was to become a playwright.

With all the great products that are apparently out there that are undetectable, for me to take something like that... when people take things that now aren't even being tested for, does it make any sense?

Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.

Food is everything we are. It's an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It's inseparable from those from the get-go.

Even my aunt Joan, hopelessly sentimental about every member of our family, admitted that I was hideous.

I could live naked... I love it.

As long as it's good music, that's what's important.

The one thing that makes writing a better pastime than reading is that you can make things turn out the way you want in the end!

A film reflects who you are as a building reflects the soul of its architect. I think what you feel and what you think and what you are is what the film is. It's not for me to talk about.

For me, music makes my smile brighter during my workouts. It adds that extra something that motivates me to go further or work harder!

I've learnt that you are who you are, and in the end, if you don't believe it, then no one will.

Always think in terms of what the other person wants.

I like mixing things. I wear a lot of boots. Love boots. And then jeans, but I like to wear them with a really ruffly top. Or I love high-waisted anything.

I was born in Africa. I came to California because it's really where new technologies can be brought to fruition, and I don't see a viable competitor.

He does all research now, but he put me on some medication, Zoloft, and, I tell you what, a lot of people have had pros and cons about it, but it was my wonder drug.

I have always done my duty. I am ready to die. My only regret is for the friends I leave behind me.

The White House doesn't create jobs. The government together - White House, Congress - creates policies that allow for greater job creation.

I'm the audience's representative on earth.

The type of stories I write are about young people grappling with the biggest problems in their lives, often problems that are bigger than they're actually capable of solving.