“And also they were absolutely brilliant in one way, you know: they knew how effective is not to punish somebody who is guilty; what Communist Party members could afford to do was mind-boggling: they could do practically anything they wanted - steal, you know, lie, whatever.”
“And everything is controlled and everybody is a member of some committee, because then their watchdogs placed in the committees can control everything, what this person says or how this person think(s), you know.”
“Because I just loved to spend two years of my life in the company of Andy Kaufman and other characters.”
“First of all, to defend my work, I had to believe that I am doing a totally silly, stupid, innocent comedy.”
“Humor was not important only for me, humor was important for this nation for centuries, to survive, you know.”
“So I left with Jean Claude and went to Paris, so when the Russians came to Prague, I was in Paris.”
“When I came for the first time to the United States, visiting, I was absolutely fascinated by New York.”
“First of all, whoever didn't want to be a member of this association or the other association, was branded, you know, like a dangerous individualist, you know, infected by the Western decadence, you know. So everybody joined.”
“You know what happened, you know, in 1938: France, England, you know, just sold out Czechoslovakia to Hitler.”
“I remember in 1968 when we were in Cannes, in the festival, and we were supposed to be there 10 days, and the second day the festival collapsed because the French, you know, film-makers raised the red flag in the festival and ended the festival.”