“I look at the human sciences as poetic sciences in which there is no objectivity, and I see film as not being objective, and cinema verite as a cinema of lies that depends on the art of telling yourself lies. If you’re a good storyteller then the lie is more true than reality, and if you’re a bad one, the truth is worse than a half lie.”

“I don’t think there’s any border between science and art. All the fiction films I have made were always on the same subject,—a discovery of the “Other,” an exploration of difference.”

“Now, here’s a philosophical dilemma for a vicar … is it a lie if you don’t know you’re lying? Is it a lie if you’re lying to yourself?”“Is it a sin if I tell my cousin to bugger off?”

“I am a lie that always speaks the truth.”

“It is worse for a liar to tell the truth than for a lover of truth to lie.”

“Sometimes,” Sam says, “I can’t tell when you’re lying.” “I never lie,” I lie.”

“The Kafka paradox: art depends on truth, but truth, being indivisable, cannot know itself: to tell the truth is to lie. thus the writer is the truth, and yet when he speaks he lies.”