Quotes from Alfonso Cuaron

In 'Gravity,' nearly everything is a metaphor for the main character. The way I tend to approach a film is that character and background are equally important; one informs the other. Here, Sandra Bullock is caught between Earth and the void of the universe, just floating there in between. We use the debris as a metaphor for adversity.

When you strip hope from people, it leaves a void, and that void needs to be filled. And very likely, that void is going to be filled by an ideology... Hope and faith are so connected. Now, when ideology connects with faith, the ideology becomes an item of faith, not a point of discussion.

The only reason you make a movie is not to make or set out to do a good or a bad movie, it's just to see what you learn for the next one.

I knew early on that I was a nerd and that films were my refuge. Those first few minutes before the lights went off, and you're alone in the theater waiting, were really pleasurable.

The two real leads in 'Children of Men' are Clive Owen and the social environment. You know, this same movie without the social environment maybe is just like a generic chase movie.

The amazing thing is that the more money it takes for a movie to get made, the more you feel like everybody wants you to fail.

You have to be very focused about the music that you have inside.

I left Mexico for artistic survival. If I had stayed, I would have been forced by the government, who control the movie business, to direct TV shows or commercials or infomercials for the government.

A lot of the films I like are more than fantasies - they're movies fascinated by the technology of space exploration, and they try to honor the laws of physics. I watched the Gregory Peck movie 'Marooned' over and over when I was a kid.

Most people just half-watch TV. They watch TV while they are doing many other things in the environment of their home. So, what they are doing goes through their ears as much as through their eyes. In television, the narrative and characters are in the foreground of everything, because you are watching TV as you do other stuff.

I have to confess that I don't read much of what is written about me.

When I learned to switch jealousy for admiration, it unblocked a lot of things.

Cautionary tales were fantastic in the '70s.

I think it is something that is so important, to be very aware of the direction in which the 21st century is going with all this blind faith in democracy. And by the way, I am not against democracy - I am against the blind faith that is being put in democracy.

If you want to keep on being relevant as a director, I think you have to embrace the times. And with the times come technologies and formats.

There are fewer established rules in the way you tell a story for commercials than in features. It's a great little short story you get to play with.

I have this thing that, once I finish a movie, I never see it again.

Once I finish a film, I don't ever see it again. Never ever. I have never seen any of my films since I finished them.

I have my misgivings about 3-D. I don't like the lack of blacks and whites, how it dulls the image, how the color gets corrupted. I don't necessarily like the experience of having heavy glasses in front of me.

I have to say, 'Gravity' is better in 3-D, even though in 2-D the quality of the picture is better. But the 3-D is better.

Technology is technology. Technology doesn't have a, it is not good or bad. Technologies are tools.

I understand the bad rap that 3-D is getting because the conversions are crappy and because the films aren't designed for 3-D. It's a completely different medium.

Experiencing this film in 2-D is only getting about 20 percent of the experience of 'Gravity.'

I love L.A. I always have such a great time in L.A. The way I kind of define me and L.A. is the noise of the factory doesn't let me sleep well.