A biography for Manuel Puighasn’t been written yet.
“I started writing movie scripts. They excited me a lot, but I didn't like them when they were finished because they were simple copies of the films I saw in childhood.”
“Modern American cinema seems to me superficial. The intention is to understand a certain reality, and the result is nothing but a photographing of that reality.”
“I've never seen a worse situation than that of young writers in the United States. The publishing business in North America is so commercialized.”
“In film, you can't go into analytical explorations because the audience will reject that.”
“What's better, a poetic intuition or an intellectual work? I think they complement each other.”
“I would very much like to become a best-selling author.”
“I haven't been the kind of writer about whom book-length academic studies have been written.”
“I allow my intuition to lead my path.”
“In a country like France, so ancient, their history is full of outstanding people, so they carry a heavy weight on their back. Who could write in French after Proust or Flaubert?”
“I don't think humor is forced upon my universe; it's a part of it.”
“What better model of a synthesis than a nocturnal dream? Dreams simplify, don't they?”
“It doesn't matter that the way of life shown by Hollywood was phony. It helped you hope.”
“I have written every one of my novels to convince somebody of something.”
“I believe realism is nothing but an analysis of reality. Film scripts have a synthetical constitution.”
“I've always wondered why there isn't a great French novel about the German occupation. The nouveau roman authors weren't interested in telling that sort of thing.”
“--And the good thing about feeling happy, you know, Valentin? ...It's that you think it's forever, that one's never ever going to feel unhappy again.”
“I like the beauty of Faulkner's poetry. But I don't like his themes, not at all.”
“I'm not terribly happy about rock and roll. Certain rock music is uninspiring, numbing; it makes you feel like an idiot.”
“Most of the movies I saw growing up were viewed as totally disposable, fine for quick consumption, but they have survived 50 years and are still growing.”
“I began teaching in New York because I needed to stay in the United States and didn't have my immigration papers in order, so working for a university was a way of resolving the issue.”