For me, Fellini was like a watermelon. It is there. A watermelon cannot die.

I remember in the circus learning that the clown was the prince, the high prince. I always thought that the high prince was the lion or the magician, but the clown is the most important.

My father was a farmer and my mother was a farmer, but, my childhood was very good. I am very grateful for my childhood, because it was full of gladness and good humanity.

Fellini belongs to nature.

For me, Fellini was like a watermelon. It is there. A watermelon cannot die.

In Italy, the country where fascism was born, we have a particular relation with the Holocaust, but as a turning point in history it belongs to everybody in the world. It is a part of humanity.

My mother brought me magicians and witches, because I was very ugly, really revolting. So she thought somebody had put a spell on me - this is the truth - so she made me drink some horrible terrifying potions, for year.

It's a sign of mediocrity when you demonstrate gratitude with moderation.

When I first saw a Fellini movie, I came out of the movie theatre and decided to become a lawyer! I thought to myself, it's impossible to make something so beautiful!

The first movie I saw - and I don't know if it influenced me - was Ben Hur. We watched it outside in a corn field, and it ran backwards, so the first movie I ever saw was Ben Hur backwards.

My duty is to try to reach beauty. Cinema is emotion. When you laugh you cry.

'The Divine Comedy' is very sophisticated but also very popular.

'The Tiger And The Snow' is a beautiful movie. I am in love with this idea.

I am like a cartoon strip; I am like Donald Duck; everybody knows me in Italy.

I could have made a small film and kept all the money from 'Life is Beautiful'. Instead, I spent more money than I had on 'Pinocchio', a very risky film.

I do not think the American peoples are idiots. They are a very playful and sensitive people! I know them!

I grew up in Tuscany in a very poor family. My father was a farmer and my mother was a farmer, but, my childhood was very good. I am very grateful for my childhood, because it was full of gladness and good humanity.

I would like to thank my parents in Vergaio, a little village in Italy. They gave me the biggest gift: poverty.

I'm a storyteller: the crux of the matter is to reach beauty, poetry; it doesn't matter if that is comedy or tragedy. They're the same if you reach the beauty.

Maybe sometimes I have been wrong with some movies. Anyway, I try to do my best.

My previous movie before 'Life Is Beautiful' was the same; they didn't release it so much in United States.

Only comedians can talk about death, life, God and Virgin Mary. If I was a tragic actor, I couldn't allow myself. But with this accent I can do it. I can talk with death in person because I am a clown. Yes. And I am proud to be a clown - very much.

Sometimes poetry, it is incomprehensible. But we need incomprehensible stuff! It is very healthy to talk about incomprehensible things! It is very healthy! We need it!

Stanley Kubrick is one of the geniuses of this century.

The exquisite truth is to believe in something that maybe you know is a fiction, but you believe in it willingly.

The most important thing is to continue to be yourself. The day after the Oscars, you have to get on with your life. To be honest and true to yourself.

To be in front of an audience and pretending, and to lie, this is the principle of acting.

When we talk to somebody and we want to be nice or polite or show our more beautiful side, we try to use the best words that we know. This is what poets are doing. They are cleaning the words, they are inventing the sentiments, they are giving us a way to communicate.

I thought it would be my one and only exhibition, so I decided to call it My Major Retrospective.

One of the things you do when you make a piece of art is you try to make the world you'd rather be in.

I'm very proud to be representing Latinas and women of color, young mothers and full-figured women. I just love that we're seeing different types of people on screen.

Even the contemporary horror authors who have seriously influenced me are a disparate bunch.

Theory not only formulates what we know but also tells us what we want to know, that is, the questions to which an answer is needed.

Over the last 20 years, everyone who interviews me feels compelled to ask at least one question about 'The Island of Dr. Moreau.'

The fictional eye sees in through and around what is really there.

When I was growing up in East Germay, everyone said there was no God. So I started looking for it myself.

I don't go to royal parties or play polo on horseback. No, I don't hang out with the posh crowd, if that makes sense.

The advantages found in history seem to be of three kinds, as it amuses the fancy, as it improves the understanding, and as it strengthens virtue.

Of course there are critics who believe that no matter what we do, the Florida dream is over. They claim that we must accept the idea that inevitably our future is one of high taxes and big government.

Eighty percent of our life is emotion, and only 20 percent is intellect. I am much more interested in how you feel than how you think. I can change how you think, but how you feel is something deeper and stronger, and it's something that's inside you.

I'll have you know Southern isn't a synonym for stupid.

I hate being wrong, and I hate when people give up.

In a modern loft, you can't just fill a space with furniture. Each piece has to be perfect.

I like diversity; I want one character to be very different from the next. I love to live with a character for a long time if I can, but I like one character to be different from the next.

I have a music video I was in coming out for M83 for their song 'Claudia Lewis.' It's directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, and I play opposite Lily Collins. It's a pretty edgy intergalactic music video.

I used to watch 'The Waltons' and sob because my family was nothing like that. We had a cruel sense of humor in my family.

I think pineapple is very sexy. It reminds me of bikinis and the beach.

Ski racing is not about how much you weigh. If weight was the key, everybody would be sucking down food.

Soul music is about longevity and reaching and touching people on a human level - and that's never going to get lost.