"I don't think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews."

"The revolution is a dictatorship of the exploited against the exploiters."

"I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating... because it causes war, hypocrisy and competition."

"They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?"

"The equal right of all citizens to health, education, work, food, security, culture, science, and wellbeing - that is, the same rights we proclaimed when we began our struggle, in addition to those which emerge from our dreams of justice and equality for all inhabitants of our world - is what I wish for all."

"I became a Communist by studying capitalist political economy, and when I had some understanding of that problem, it actually seemed to me so absurd, so irrational, so inhuman, that I simply began to elaborate on my own formulas for production and distribution."

"When at just 27 years old, Qaddafi, colonel in the Libyan army, inspired by his Egyptian colleague Abdel Nasser, overthrew King Idris I in 1969, he applied important revolutionary measures such as agrarian reform and the nationalization of oil."

"When the Revolution triumphed in 1959, our island was a true Yankee colony. The United States had duped and disarmed our Liberation Army. One couldn't speak of developed agriculture, but of immense plantations exploited on the base of manual and animal labour that in general used neither fertilizers nor machinery."

"The Revolution did not assume a socialist nature because of support from the U.S.S.R.; it was the other way around: support from the U.S.S.R. was produced by the socialist nature of the Cuban Revolution. To such a degree, that when the U.S.S.R. disappears, Cuba keeps on being socialist."

"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."

"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."

"Art depends on luck and talent."

"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."