 Art depends on luck and talent. |
| When I do a novel, I don't really use the script, I use the book; when I did Apocalypse Now, I used Heart of Darkness. Novels usually have so much rich material. |
| 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 had been a kid that moved so much, I didn't have a lot of friends. Theater really represented camaraderie. |
| The stuff that I got in trouble for, the casting for The Godfather or the flag scene in Patton, was the stuff that was remembered, and was considered the good work. |
| When I was about 9, I had polio, and people were very frightened for their children, so you tended to be isolated. I was paralyzed for a while, so I watched television. |
| I had a number of teachers who hated me. I didn't do well in school. |
| I had an older brother who was very interested in literature, so I had an early exposure to literature, and and theater. My father sometimes would work in musical comedies. |
| I remember growing up with television, from the time it was just a test pattern, with maybe a little bit of programming once in a while. |
| A number of images put together a certain way become something quite above and beyond what any of them are individually. |
| My film is not a movie; it's not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam. |
| We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little, we went insane. |
| I thought I wanted to be a playwright because I was interested in stories and telling stories. |
| I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians. |
| Roger Corman exploited all of the young people who worked for him, but he really gave you responsibility and opportunity. So it was kind of a fair deal. |
| You're in a profession in which absolutely everybody is telling you their opinion, which is different. That's one of the reasons George Lucas never directed again. |
| I associate my motion picture career more with being unhappy and scared, or being under the gun, than with anything pleasant. |
| We were raised in an Italian-American household, although we didn't speak Italian in the house. We were very proud of being Italian, and had Italian music, ate Italian food. |
| In kindergarten that used to be my job, to tell them fairytales. I liked Hans Christian Andersen, and the Grimm fairy tales, all the classic fairy tales. |
| I liked to work in a shop down in the basement and invent things and build gadgets. |
