Louis Malle

“You must find the note, the correct key, for your story. If you find it, everything will work. If you do not, everything will stick out like elbows.”

Bobcat Goldthwait

“That movie looks so bad, I can’t believe I wasn’t in it.”

Andrzej Żuławski

“To please the majority is the requirement of the Planet Cinema. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t make a concession to viewers, these victims of life, who think that a film is made only for their enjoyment, and who know nothing about their own existence.”

Catherine Breillat

“When I shoot a film, I always project myself into one of the characters, at once into either a man or a woman...”

John Cameron Mitchell

“It’s ultimately a boring thing, your sexuality – inherently neutral and kind of dull. It’s what you do with it that’s interesting.”

Hiroshi Teshigahara

Henri-Georges Clouzot

“I want only to tell a story. I think movies are entertainment. If at the same time you can get across something you feel, that is perfect.”

Andrea Arnold

“Dramatically, I like darkness, I like conflict - but I don't see the world as defined by them. And why would I pretend to? That's not who I am.”

Bruce Robinson

“My whole philosophy of film-making – not that I’ve done it much – is that it’s a conspiracy. Conspire in Latin means ‘to breathe with’, and that’s how I feel about making a film. I want everyone to be making the film, not just me telling them what to do, because these guys are all experts in their field”

Maurice Pialat

“What I try to do, with the actors' consent, is to create something by beginning with a set situation that we can deviate from in the course of the shoot. ”

Louis C.K.

“Every day starts, my eyes open and I reload the program of misery. I open my eyes remember who I am, what I'm like, and I just go "ugh...."”

Charlie Chaplin

“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.”

Fatih Akin

“The funnier it is in the beginning of a story, the more dramatic it can become. Because when an audience is laughing, that's opening their souls somehow, and when you have an audience with an open soul, it's much better to hit them with a knife.”

Keith Gordon

“I’ve gotten to direct four movies and produce one, all of which have been the films I’ve wanted them to be. So, I wouldn’t trade that for bigger releases.”

Bob Rafelson

“If it happens that people respond to your work in your lifetime, well, you’re very lucky. In some way it gives you permission to go on making movies. But if you don’t get the applause, well, there are other things. I mean, after all, there’s your life to live.”

Federico Fellini

“What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one...”

Pier Paolo Pasolini

“The mark which has dominated all my work is this longing for life, this sense of exclusion, which doesn't lessen but augments this love of life.”

Christopher Guest

“Comedy is like music. You have to know the key and you have to find players with good chops.”

Roberto Rossellini

“I am not a pessimist; to perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of optimism.”

Aki Kaurismäki

“Cinema is dead. It died 1962, I think it was in October!”