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Quotes by Filmmaker

"Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do."

"Once life is finished it acquires a sense; up to that point it has not got a sense; its sense is suspended and therefore ambiguous."

"The U.S. is by far the biggest exporter of arms in the world. It was true during the Clinton administration, and it's true during the Bush administration. It's bipartisan."

"We hear so much about weapons of mass destruction. But nine out of 10 war victims are killed by guns. It's the AK-47 that's a weapon of mass destruction."

"You have two choices when someone changes your work. You can either wash your hands of it or embrace it."

"I was so angry to realize I'm a Quebecois, with no past, no history, just two cans of maple syrup."

"Then I became aware of the site as the traffic for it became higher. The most recent contact was this girl Lily. She wanted me to shoot her for the site and she actually showed up. There a lot of people who contact me to do a shoot for a website then you never hear from them."

"A lot of the point mags are going out of business. They dropped the pay tremendously and it's all because of the internet. I used to go out once a month to LA and shoot for one week. I'd make a ton of money then come back to New York and do whatever I wanted."

"If I was on the cover of Artforum and my photos were selling for lots of money. If I could be doing that I wouldn't be working for porn mags. But I got to make a living. I shoot for them only occasionally now because that business isn't what it used to be."

"Remembering is painful, it's difficult, but it can be inspiring and it can give wisdom."

"The people who went on that airplane were unexceptional."

"Death is an incident producing clay. Use it, mold it, learn from it."

"The more real things get, the more like myths they become."

"The Jews have never been ashamed of being Jews, whereas homosexuals have been stupid enough to be ashamed of their homosexuality."

"I'd like to be for cinema what Shakespeare was for theatre, Marx for politics and Freud for psychology: someone after whom nothing is as it used to be."

"Yes, actually ever since I saw his films and tried to write about them, Sirk's been in everything I've done. Not Sirk himself, but what I've learned from his work."
Work,

"And I don't believe that melodramatic feelings are laughable - they should be taken absolutely seriously."

"It isn't easy to accept that suffering can also be beautiful... it's difficult. It's something you can only understand if you dig deeply into yourself."
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