Life is just the same as learning to swim. Do not be afraid of making mistakes, for there is no other way of learning how to live!
I wanted to show how lightness was possible in the 1960s, but how life is more difficult in the 2000s.
I'm someone who is pretty modest and doesn't like to talk about my love stories. Songs bring a lyrical quality to it, simply. It allows the audience to perceive the characters' love life in a way that is much more obvious than it might have been.
Even if I sometimes have some somewhat negative thoughts, for instance, if I see them in somebody else's movie, I feel jealous and possessive.
I wanted to make a more Romanesque film that told a story over a long period of time - this one spans 45 years. I had a great desire to make another musical, but this time I wanted to be more ambitious.
The actors have confidence in me to let me lead them to unexpected things.
Supposing the Mother Earth was very hot like the sun, there would have been no growth, or it was cold like moon, there would have been no growth. It had to come to the centre where it had both the things in proper proportions to grow. In the same way a human being has to work out that you keep a moderation and a balance and understand not to go to extremes of anything. That balance you learn when you love someone.
I feel a responsibility, as I get older, to be responsible to what I've experienced, to what I've lived and been in a position to witness. I realize now that as a consequence of having lived the life I have, quite apart from the one, as I understand it, lived by most American writers, maybe I now know some things and have some stories to tell that others don't know about or wouldn't be able to tell. Maybe there's an intrinsic value in that lived experience and knowledge, though of course what you do with it is everything.
What brought me to the theater, no matter you're a Jew or a Russian or Armenian or Latvian, are suddenly illuminated by stage light and one beautiful image of dance.
I've wanted to feel pleasure to the point of insanity. They call it getting high, because it's wanting to know that higher level, that godlike level. You want to touch the heavens, you want to feel glory and euphoria, but the trick is it takes work. You can't buy it, you can't get it on a street corner, you can't steal it or inject it or shove it up your ass, you have to earn it.