Roman Polanski

In Paris, one is always reminded of being a foreigner. If you park your car wrong, it is not the fact that it's on the sidewalk that matters, but the fact that you speak with an accent.

— Roman Polanski

It's weird. I always had the premonition that Sharon belonged to me just for a little while.

— Roman Polanski

She was the least hypocritical woman you could ever meet: once, when an executive told her that we should ask for single cabins in the transatlantic that brought us to the United States, she simply said, "Why? Everybody knows that we live together."

— Roman Polanski

I'm forced to mix with people of this industry and I can swear that is really difficult to meet people with her nature and her spirit. Generally, everybody is opportunistic here. Sharon had grace and charm; she knew how to make anybody's life easier. When somebody was busy, she was there in a discreet manner to serve you a drink or a coffee.

— Roman Polanski

Without her I feel lost, I can't explain this in words. However there are things that I just can't stand thinking of; the way she and our son died.

— Roman Polanski

I don't know that you can speak of shock … Nothing is too shocking for me. I don't really know what is shocking. When you tell the story of a man who is beheaded, you have to show how they cut off his head. If you don't, it's like telling a dirty joke and leaving out the punch line.

— Roman Polanski

I see Macbeth as a young, open-faced warrior, who is gradually sucked into a whirpool of events because of his ambition. When he meets the weird sisters and hears their prophecy, he's like the man who hopes to win a million — a gamble for high stakes.

— Roman Polanski

It's easy to direct while acting — there’s one less person to argue with.

— Roman Polanski

If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… fucking, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to fuck young girls. Juries want to fuck young girls. Everyone wants to fuck young girls!

— Roman Polanski

You have to show violence the way it is. If you don't show it realistically, then that's immoral and harmful. If you don't upset people, then that's obscenity.

— Roman Polanski

If you have a great passion it seems that the logical thing is to see the fruit of it, and the fruit are children.

— Roman Polanski

Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater.

— Roman Polanski

My films are the expression of momentary desires. I follow my instincts, but in a disciplined way.

— Roman Polanski

Berlin was great. It’s a new generation. If you continue to hate, you are entering into the same philosophy that began the war. You have to look forward at people and new times.

— Roman Polanski

Whenever I get happy, I always have a terrible feeling.

— Roman Polanski

I never made a film which fully satisfied me.

— Roman Polanski

I want people to go to the movies. I am the man of the spectacle. I'm playing.

— Roman Polanski

People like Truffaut, Lelouch and Godard are like little kids playing at being revolutionaries. I've passed through this stage. I lived in a country where these things happened seriously.

— Roman Polanski

In Paris, one is always reminded of being a foreigner. If you park your car wrong, it is not the fact that it's on the sidewalk that matters, but the fact that you speak with an accent.

— Roman Polanski

I can only say that whatever my life and work have been, I'm not envious of anyone — and this is my biggest satisfaction.

— Roman Polanski

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked. She said her asthma was playing her up.… She was wheezing quite audibly by now. She picked up my towel and said, ‘I’d better rest awhile; otherwise I might pass out.’

— Roman Polanski

We dried ourselves and each other. She said she was feeling better. Then, very gently, I began to kiss and caress her. After this had gone on for some time, I led her over to the couch.

— Roman Polanski

There was no doubt about Sandra's experience and lack of inhibition. She spread herself and I entered her. She wasn't unresponsive. Yet, when I asked her softly if she was liking it, she resorted to her favorite expression: ‘It’s all right.’

— Roman Polanski

On February 26 last, Roger Gunson, the deputy district attorney in charge of the case in 1977, now retired, testified under oath before Judge Mary Lou Villar in the presence of David Walgren, the present deputy district attorney in charge of the case, who was at liberty to contradict and question him, that on September 16, 1977, Judge Rittenband stated to all the parties concerned that my term of imprisonment in Chino constituted the totality of the sentence I would have to serve.

— Roman Polanski

I want people to go to the movies. I am the man of the spectacle. I'm playing.

— Roman Polanski

Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater.

— Roman Polanski