Quotes

I'm sort of my own Mafia, you know, breaking my own knees.

There's a difference between ad-libbing and improvising. And there's a difference between not knowing what to do and just saying something. Or making choices as an actor. As a writer also, as a person who's making a film, as a cameraman, everything is a choice. And it seems to me I don't really have to direct anyone or write down that somebody's getting drunk; all I have to do is say that there's a bottle there and put a bottle there and then they're going to get drunk. I don't want to tell them how they're going to get drunk. I don't want to tell them how they're going to get drunk, or what they would do, and I don't want to restrict them in being able to carry out a beat, to fulfill an action. You can't say somebody's drunk, or in love.

Ricardo Montalban is to improvisational acting what Mount Rushmore is to animation.

As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all we must dare to fail.

People have forgotten how to relate or respond; what I'm trying to do with my movies is build something audiences can respond to.

When I started making films, I wanted to make Frank Capra pictures. But I've never been able to make anything but these crazy, tough pictures. You are what you are.

Say what you are. Not what you would like to be. Not what you have to be. Just say what you are. And what you are is good enough.

Everyone has made a love, religion, god. Time magazine had the audacity to kill God and those people are floundering and walking around the world with nothing in their lives, simply because they are not led by anybody with responsibility.

In the last couple of decades or so, something has happened to the American dream. I don't quite know what it is, and it's still not very clear in my mind. Confusion has replaced patriotism. The intellect has replaced love. If something doesn't make money, no one is interested. Everything is for sale. Emotions are sold. Sex is sold. Everything is sex. Cars, women, clothes, your face, your hands, your shoes! Look at the ads, at television. My emotions aren't for sale. My thoughts can't be bought. They're mine. I don't want movies that sell me something. I don't want to be told how to feel.

[on Gena Rowlands] She and I have friction in terms of lifestyle and taste. We agree in taste on nothing. She thinks so totally opposite to anything I would ever conceive!

I'm not really a director. I'm a man who believes in the validity of a person's inner desires. And I think those inner desires, whether they're ugly or beautiful, are pertinent to each of us and are probably the only things worth a damn. I want to put those inner dreams on the screen so we can all look and think and feel and marvel at them.

I'm not part of anything. I never joined anything. I could work anywhere.

[on Love Streams (1984)] This picture, this picture; I don't give a fuck what anybody says. If you don't have time to see it, don't. If you don't like it, don't. If it doesn't give you an answer, fuck you. I didn't make it for you anyway.

[on the ending of Love Streams (1984)] I'm crazy, but I love this fucking movie. They hate it, but I love their faces. This is when we should begin the movie. This is the beginning. Now she goes home and the movie begins. Fuck 'em if they want answers. Fuck 'em!

I'm a professional actor out of defense. I'd prefer to be an amateur actor. But I've got to have money to make films. Unfortunately, it's an extremely expensive hobby.

[on who is independent filmmakers] Martin Scorsese, Elaine May, Shirley Clarke. It's hard to explain what "independence" means -- but to those who have it, film is still a mystery, not a way out. There are other independents, of course, but they haven't really hit the limelight yet, so not enough is at stake. To still do what you want after ten years, twenty years, is something. I've known a lot of filmmakers who started out with enormous talents and lost momentum. That is basically the point. (3 March 1975)