The original title for 'In the Mood for Love' was called 'A Story About Food.' The idea was to tell a love story through different courses.

When I look at 'Fallen Angels,' I realize it is not a film that is truly about Hong Kong. It's more like my Hong Kong fantasy. I want Hong Kong to be quiet, with less people.

What's so great about inspiration is sometimes it finds you when you're not looking.

I'm not coming from film school. I learned cinema in the cinema watching films, so you always have a curiosity. I say, 'Well, what if I make a film in this genre? What if I make this film like this?'

Chinese martial artists consider themselves to be gardeners, and it's an honor for them to take care of this garden, to better it and hand it over to the generations that follow. I think that's a very important message in a time when personal achievement seems to be the only criteria of success.

This is what the difference is between Hong Kong and Chinese cinema - Chinese cinema was made for their own communities. It was for propaganda. But Hong Kong made films to entertain, and they know how to communicate with international audiences.

Painting is the passage from the chaos of the emotions to the order of the possible.

The construction of Europe is an art. It is the art of the possible.

I think that art has the ability to capture people's imaginations and make them think that more is possible.

First, I was so dazzled and besotted by India. People said the poverty was biblical, and I'm afraid that was my attitude, too. It's terribly easy to get used to someone else's poverty if you're living a middle-class life in it. But after a while, I saw it wasn't possible to accept it, and I also didn't want to.

The cat is such a perfect symbol of beauty and superiority that it seems scarcely possible for any true aesthete and civilised cynic to do other than worship it.

With beauty, I just try to get as much sleep as possible. I might have a nice hot bath and moisturise with coconut oil.