In Blow-up I used my head instinctively!

I mean simply to say that I want my characters to suggest the background in themselves, even when it is not visible. I want them to be so powerfully realized that we cannot imagine them apart from their physical and social context even when we see them in empty space.

I don't want what I am saying to sound like a prophecy or anything like an analysis of modern society... these are only feelings I have, and I am the least speculative man on earth.

But, you know, Cronaca isn't more innovative than what comes after.

In Blow-up I used my head instinctively!

When I am shooting a film I never think of how I want to shoot something; I simply shoot it.

I meant exactly what I said: that we are saddled with a culture that hasn't advanced as far as science.

Normally, however, I try to avoid repetitions of any shot.

We live in a society that compels us to go on using these concepts, and we no longer know what they mean.

I began taking liberties a long time ago; now it is standard practice for most directors to ignore the rules.

You know what I would like to do: make a film with actors standing in empty space so that the spectator would have to imagine the background of the characters.

A scene has to have a rhythm of its own, a structure of its own.

All the characters in my films are fighting these problems, needing freedom, trying to find a way to cut themselves loose, but failing to rid themselves of conscience, a sense of sin, the whole bag of tricks.

I am neither a sociologist nor a politician. All I can do is imagine for myself what the future will be like.

When man becomes reconciled to nature, when space becomes his true background, these words and concepts will have lost their meaning, and we will no longer have to use them.

Hollywood is like being nowhere and talking to nobody about nothing.

When a scene is being shot, it is very difficult to know what one wants it to say, and even if one does know, there is always a difference between what one has in mind and the result on film.

Scientific man is already on the moon, and yet we are still living with the moral concepts of Homer.

Till now I have never shot a scene without taking account of what stands behind the actors because the relationship between people and their surroundings is of prime importance.

The script is simply a series of notes for the film.

I made the big turnaround in the early Nineties when I started hearing all the tenth generation punk bands like Green Day and Offspring and all those people. It just made me fall in love with punk again and remember my roots, and since that time I've always wanted to do more of that kind of music again.

I will come to know when my time's up, and when it is, I will exit gracefully. I will not hang around till I am kicked out.

I'm a huge animal lover - I love animals to death. I've got tortoises and three dogs, and I've had a million animals in the past. I just think that we should do all we can to take care of them.

Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as his own.

To apologize for what you most wanted to do, to concede that it was obnoxious, boring, 'vulgar and unsafe' --- that was the worst thing.

I don't really make decisions, I go with the flow.

You still have to pitch the same game, execute your pitches as best you can. If the shadows end up helping you out, then great, but you can't really worry about that stuff.

Why did humans lose their body hair? Why did they start walking on their hind legs? Why did they develop big brains? I think that the answer to all three questions is sexual selection.

As an actor, you just want to continue to work on things that you like. You can be in this business a long time and consistently working and just be totally artistically unfulfilled.

One thing about God's will, you can never see God's will before it happens. You can only see at the end of it.

Defence was an afterthought, prompted by necessity; and its introduction as a State function, though effected doubtless with a view to the strengthening of the State, was really and in principle the initiation of the State's destruction.

Today if you are not confused you are just not thinking clearly.

It's incredibly restorative. A lot of people find great solace in gardening. It teaches self-worth, patience, reliance, persistence. It teaches us the circle of life. It teaches us that things die, and from that new things come.

All creative people should be required to leave California for three months every year.

Farewell my great one my own farewell my pride farewell my swift deep dear river how I loved your daylong splashing how I loved to plunge into your cold waves.

I really wanted to make the worst thing: the thing that even people who liked bad, terrible music wouldn't like - the stuff that people would ignore, always. Something really, really stupid. Something that is destined for failure.

Bravery is believing in yourself, and that thing nobody can teach you.

I love teaching. If I made a trillion dollars, I would still teach. It's different every day. You get to meet intelligent people all the time - or at least most of the time.

Retailing has gone from an information-scarce to an information-rich environment.

The reason advertising is governed by fear, after all, is that most agencies rely on just a few clients to bring in the lion's share of their revenues.

A peacetime draft is the most un-American thing I know.

And New York is the most beautiful city in the world? It is not far from it. No urban night is like the night there... Squares after squares of flame, set up and cut into the aether. Here is our poetry, for we have pulled down the stars to our will.

Ultimately, the best speakers are the ones who have put 10,000 hours into listening.

If you write a book that's as powerful and successful as 'Bastard,' there's a strong desire to prove there's something else.