Francis Ford Coppola

I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.

We want you to take from us. We want you, at first, to steal from us, because you can't steal. You will take what we give you and you will put it in your own voice and that's how you will find your voice.

We teach our boys to firebomb villages, but we won't let them write fuck on the side of their planes because it's obscene.

As long as I can make lots of money in other businesses, I'll continue to subsidize my own work.

I was never sloppy with other people's money. Only my own. Because I figure, well, you can be.

I don't think there's any artist of any value who doesn't doubt what they're doing.

Art depends on luck and talent.

It takes no imagination to live within your means.

I have more of a vivid imagination than I have talent. I cook up ideas. It's just a characteristic.

Most Italians who came to this country are very patriotic. There was this exciting possibility that if you worked real hard, and you loved something, you could become successful.

People feel the worst film I made was 'Jack.' But to this day, when I get checks from old movies I've made, 'Jack' is one of the biggest ones. No one knows that. If people hate the movie, they hate the movie. I just wanted to work with Robin Williams.

I think a sequel is a waste of money and time. I think movies should illuminate new stories.

You have to really be courageous about your instincts and your ideas. Otherwise you'll just knuckle under, and things that might have been memorable will be lost.

I gladly, I voluntarily gave up the kind of commercial film career I had going as soon as I had enough money to finance my own films.

Usually, the stuff that's your best idea or work is going to be attacked the most.

I believe that filmmaking - as, probably, is everything - is a game you should play with all your cards, and all your dice, and whatever else you've got. So, each time I make a movie, I give it everything I have. I think everyone should, and I think everyone should do everything they do that way.

Anyone who's made film and knows about the cinema has a lifelong love affair with the experience. You never stop learning about film.

I had a number of very strong personalities in my family. My father was a concert flutist, the solo flute for Toscanini.