I shot a lot of close-ups on this movie 'cause there's like a dual mystery, she's searching through her haunted past to find some truth and she's also following an external mystery where she comes to think she might be the killer.

That's a little homage in a way to that and also to create that sort of creepy atmosphere that Hitchcock did. Vertigo was one of his great movies that was shot right here in The City and it's about a woman and the psychological twists and so forth.

But you know, there's always a danger nowadays that films are gonna be brought up to Canada for budget reasons. And that's something that really concerns me.

Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a complex figure and we should not look for easy answers with him. He was, strangely perhaps, against the death penalty, and he was never put in prison for murders or anything like that.

They are always very lax about putting restrictions on violence for children's movies, which I think is much more harrowing than sexuality for children.

The danger is not so much in the economic structure of a society but in its intellectual structure.

To me, thoughts are fun and art is fun. The strength of our society should not be idle entertainments but the joy of pursuing ideas.

The truth is, I'm drawn to all kinds of things.

Similarly, the Marquis is presented in this film as someone who would disturb the status quo and therefore must be kept imprisoned.

I read, therefore I'm interested in writers.

I shot a lot of close-ups on this movie 'cause there's like a dual mystery, she's searching through her haunted past to find some truth and she's also following an external mystery where she comes to think she might be the killer.

This one, even though it called for San Francisco, I think they wanted to initially shoot part of the film up here, you know get the exteriors and then go back to L.A. We really fought to get it up here and I think Paramount was really pleased.

And I liked this extreme character of de Sade.

Whereas European films have traditionally been able to go into adult relationships. I think there's a huge audience in America for those kinds of films.

You can have a lot of unhappiness by not having money, but the reverse is no guarantee of happiness.

Is there something to be said for the writings of the Marquis? Is there something to be said for pornography? And is there something to be said against both? I hope our film is balanced and rich enough to encourage debate and discussion.

It just seemed to me to be a great story, set back in its time but something that seemed to have relevance for our time. Now that the film is coming out, it looks like we're back in another time where repression of expression is all the rage.

What's really interesting about that is that a lot of these words that were incendiary in their time now seem almost harmless and laughable, because they have this archaic quality.

Nowadays they either want to move the film to Canada or in some cases they go to Prague or Romania or they want to keep 'em down in L.A.

There were a lot of adventure books for boys, historical novels by Kenneth Roberts, and whatever mystery novels the alarmed librarian imagined might not corrupt an eager but innocent youth.

Having soon discovered to be great, I must appear so, and therefore studiously avoided mixing in society, and wrapped myself in mystery, devoting my time to fasting and prayer.

It seems to me that good novels celebrate the mystery in ordinary life, and summing it all up in psychological terms strips the mystery away.

The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another... and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world.

Sir, you have tasted two whole worms; you have hissed all my mystery lectures and been caught fighting a liar in the quad; you will leave by the next town drain.

Everything I write comes from my childhood in one way or another. I am forever drawing on the sense of mystery and wonder and possibility that pervaded that time of my life.

The only mystery in life is why the kamikaze pilots wore helmets.

For those who live neither with religious consolations about death nor with a sense of death (or of anything else) as natural, death is the obscene mystery, the ultimate affront, the thing that cannot be controlled. It can only be denied.

I think that the ideal space must contain elements of magic, serenity, sorcery and mystery.

It is the mystery of the creative act that something other than our conscious self takes over.

The mystery is what prompted men to leave caves, to come out of the womb of nature.

At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is God's gift, that's why we call it the present.

Religion points to that area of human experience where in one way or another man comes upon mystery as a summons to pilgrimage.

Ballet is sort of a mystery to me. And I don't want to unravel that mystery.

I thought I had a clear picture of death, but now I know it's a mystery and it will always be a mystery, although it is something we all have in common: everybody knows that life ends with death.

It is a great mystery that though the human heart longs for Truth, in which alone it finds liberation and delight, the first reaction of human beings to Truth is one of hostility and fear!

It is not as though the process of production holds any mystery for me, I know exactly what it involves and I know the predominant concern in shooting one of those things is production values - or as they would say, seeing it all up there on screen.

The great mystery to me is how restaurant critics think they can get away with doing their job without anybody noticing who they are.

The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.

Every branch of human knowledge, if traced up to its source and final principles, vanishes into mystery.

It may interest you to know that my breakup with Terry and this mystery did not happen concurrently in real life. That is a writer's device, which places Gabriel under even greater pressure when the mystery begins to reveal itself.

The first step towards vice is to shroud innocent actions in mystery, and whoever likes to conceal something sooner or later has reason to conceal it.

That was the crossover line for us, to be able to play that many shows, sell them out real quick and have that tribe queue up outside and still be a mystery to everybody else.

Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge.

For tribal man space was the uncontrollable mystery. For technological man it is time that occupies the same role.

To us sin has not become any less of a mystery or a pain.

There is one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.

It would certainly be interesting to know what the CIA knew about Oswald six weeks before the assassination, but the contents of this particular message never reached the Warren Commission and remain a complete mystery.

It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.