"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."

"The essence of cinema is editing. It's the combination of what can be extraordinary images of people during emotional moments, or images in a general sense, put together in a kind of alchemy."

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

"Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos."

"Everything I do is personal. I have never made a movie that didn't have very strong personal resonance."

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

"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."

"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."

"When I was going for my graduate degree, I decided I was going to make a feature film as my thesis. That's what I was famous for-that I had my thesis film be a feature film, which was 'You're a Big Boy Now.'"

"I don't see any method at all...Sir"

"Some critics are stimulating in that they make you realise how you could do better, and those are valued."

"I know that if a film is ready to emerge out of what I write, I'll be able to go off and make it without asking anyone's permission."

"I live near San Francisco in the most beautiful spot on earth and enjoy myself in many ways. Yes, I love to work, which for now is to think and read and write, so it's all a dream come true."

"The time a movie is made is unique, not only from the talent that is available but if the public was ready for it."

"To make great movies, there is an element of risk. You have to say, 'Well, I am going to make this film, and it is not really a sure thing.'"

"I was a pretty shy, lonely kid. I blossomed about age 17, when I went to college."

"I've been blessed with enough wealth that I can make a film myself up to a certain budget. So one way I thought I would reinvent myself was just to make these very small, personal films that I've financed myself."

"I have much to learn from my daughter Sofia. Her minimalism exposes my limitations: I'm too instinctive and operatic, I put too much heart into my work, I get lost sometimes in bizarre things - it's my Italian heritage."

"The only TV I would be interested in exploring would be live television. There's no substitute for a team of artists performing at their peak live when failure is possible. It's a high-wire act. That excites me."

"I've been offered lots of movies. There's always some actor who's doing a project and would like to have me do it."

"If I have to be remembered for something, I want it remembered that I really liked children and was a good camp counselor."

"I never went to a psychologist or psychiatrist in my life. Never. You know, Italians are a little prejudiced against that kind of thing."

"Movie-wise, there is nothing I wouldn't do again. It's not possible to make one perfect movie every time."

"I was raised as a Catholic, but I didn't like the Catholic Church at all. I thought the nuns were mean."

"I was terrible at maths, but I could grasp science, and I used to love to read about the lives of the scientists. I wanted to be a scientist or an inventor."

"It is a little disappointing to see that your legs are not as strong. But I like the idea of growing old, and the thought of approaching death is not particularly daunting to me."

"We support each other in the Coppola family. We love the idea of everyone getting his place in the sun."

"When I was 13, I worked for Western Union. When the telegrams came in, I would glue them on the paper and deliver them on my bicycle."

"Being a former theater student, of course, there is a part of me that is fascinated with stage crafts and what you can do with illusions and working within the confines of the studio."

"The whole reason one wants to do lower budget films is because the lower the budget, the bigger the ideas, the bigger the themes, the more interesting the art."

"'Godfather' was very classical - the way it was shot, the style - the whole driving force of it was more classical, almost Shakespearean."

"By working in the morning, I find a sense of peace; it's isolated peace, but I can definitely be in touch with my feelings, and then I just start."

"That's part of the requirement for me to be an artist is that you're trying to share your personal existence with others and trying to illuminate modern life, trying to understand life."

"My big goal in life was always to figure out how I can make a lot of money so I can go off and make films irrespective of the opinion of the three or four critics who seem to rule the roost."

"When that happens - when risk is taken and the filmmakers dive into the subject matter without a parachute - very often what you get it something with those qualities that make it age well with the public."

"I just admire people like Woody Allen, who every year writes an original screenplay. It's astonishing. I always wished that I could do that."

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

"'The Godfather' changed my life, for better or worse. It definitely made me have an older man's film career when I was 29."

"I probably have genius. But no talent."

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

"We do things for good reasons that are bad."

"Most filmmakers can't afford to try something out that doesn't work."

"I'm no longer dependent on the movie business to make a living. So if I want to make movies as other old guys would play golf, I can."

"It takes no imagination to live within your means."

"I used to love going into local hardware stores, to look at little things they made locally. Nowadays it's harder, though you can still do it in Vietnam."

"The internet in hotels should be free - and I really resent it when they charge you five dollars for a bottle of water beside your bed."

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

"I wanted to write and direct movies and not be forced to adapt them from a bestselling book."

"When newspapers started to publish the box office scores of movies, I was horrified. Those results are totally fake because they never include the promotion budget."

"I bring to my life a certain amount of mess."