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.

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.

Being a publicist is like management in a lot of ways - you're their friend, you're their mother, you're their confidante.

My mother keeps things in perspective for me. She makes me realize that the acting I do and love is no more important than what one of my brothers does-he works in a shoe repair shop. If my career ever tapers off, I'll go to college.

Bambi has a profound effect on children because it's about losing your mother.

For those whose wit becomes the mother of villainy, those it educates to be evil in all things.

I never turned down a mother role.

I'd like to one day play Amanda, the mother, in The Glass Menagerie.

My mother is Irish, my father is black and Venezuelan, and me - I'm tan, I guess.

I loved my mother, she's a good girl.

A man is free to go up as high as he can reach up to; but I, with all my style and pep, can't get a man my equal because a girl is always judged by her mother.

Just as a mother finds pleasure in taking her little child on her lap, there to feed and caress him, in like manner our loving God shows His fondness for His beloved souls who have given themselves entirely to Him and have placed all their hope in His goodness.

Well ironically my last three roles have all been a mother. One was a Canadian film where the baby was taken away because she is a drug addict, in Irish Jam I play a mother to a four year old. I think in the future I'll be able to handle the role with a lot more depth.

Most turkeys taste better the day after, my mother's tasted better the day before.

During my grief, I realised there was nothing I could do for my mother, but I did have a child.

That's so different in Hong Kong when I'm using my own mother language, I can treat the line in one thousand different ways, with many different reactions.

I am scared of becoming a mother.

My mother liked Jim Reeves. I hated his records. He was unbearable.

The eyebrow pencil and false eyelashes were essential; my mother didn't feel dressed without them.

When I was 13 I asked my mother if it was possible for this to end - I'd had enough of it. And that was right about the time that we got a call for "The Exorcist" interview.

Middle age is the awkward period when Father Time starts catching up with Mother Nature.

I think it's time to do clean-up for a generation. I believe this is one of the movies that hits home for all colors and all races. Everybody I talk to, black or white, suburban, rich or poor, can relate to rejection, can relate to not having a father or a mother.

Write verse, not poetry. The public wants verse. If you have a talent for poetry, then don't by any means mother it, but try your hand at verse.