Jean Renoir quotes:

A director makes only one movie in his life. Then he breaks it into pieces and makes it again.

A film director is not a creator, but a midwife. His business is to deliver the actor of a child that he did not know he had inside him.

Wilshire Boulevard... It has no smell to it.

The saving grace of the cinema is that with patience, and a little love, we may arrive at that wonderfully complex creature which is called man.

The only things that are important in life are the things you remember.

Everyone has his reasons.

In this world, there is one terrible thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons.

The truly terrible thing is that everybody has their reasons.

Is it possible to succeed without any act of betrayal?

When a friend speaks to me, whatever he says is interesting.

All technical refinements discourage me. Perfect photography, larger screens, hi-fi sound, all make it possible for mediocrities slavishly to reproduce nature; and this reproduction bores me. What interests me is the interpretation of life by an artist. The personality of the film maker interests me more than the copy of an object.

The foundation of all civilization is loitering.

The awful thing about life is this: everyone has their reasons.

I am against great themes and great subjects... You can't film an idea. The camera is an instrument for recording physical impact.

I believe that perfection handicaps cinema.

There is no realism in American films. No realism, but something much better, great truth.

The advantage of being eighty years old is that one has many people to love.

Nature is millions of things. And there are millions of ways of understanding its preoccupations.

The real hell of life is that everyone has his reasons.