Quotes

Films are like Persian rugs: you keep them at their best by using them. Before you can show an old film, it has to exist -- that is, it has to have been conserved (in the archival sense). And in order to conserve it, first it has to have been "collected" (in the going-out-of-one's-way-to-rescue-and-save-what-others-discard sense). The cinema is a means towards the acquisition of knowledge in the manner of Saint Thomas: by touch. Read all you like about love, but if you haven't made love, your idea of it will be totally false.

[on Louise Brooks] There is no Greta Garbo! There is no Marlene Dietrich! There is only Louise Brooks.

I have never said this movie is good, this movie is bad; they discover by themselves. I have not helped, I have not taught. I have put food on the table, and they have taken the food and eaten.