Martin Scorsese Quotes (44 Quotes)

More personal films, you could make them, but your budgets would be cut down.

I think what happened there was just the budget would be too big to build these sets because nothing really exists here in New York of that period; you have to build it all.

I think editors know so much about how to tell a story with pictures, ... It's such an important facet of becoming a film director to know how footage can be controlled and manipulated. Every one of his films betrayed that wonderful beginning he had.

Now more than ever we need to talk to each other, to listen to each other and understand how we see the world, and cinema is the best medium for doing this.

Just when people think he gives you one thing, ... he gives you another.

In addition to celebrating great blues music, we always wanted to make sure that proceeds from this endeavor flowed back to the musicians and to efforts to keep this wonderful music alive.

On the one hand, you're the same person, but as you get older, you change somewhat, and you never know how it's going to affect your work.

He represents the American tradition of excellence and honesty and integrity. In a sense, he was the Steven Spielberg of his time.

I just wanted to be an ordinary parish priest.

There's no such thing as simple. Simple is hard.

It did remind me of something out of Greek mythology - the richest king who gets everything he wants, but ultimately his family has a curse on it from the Gods.

And as I've gotten older, I've had more of a tendency to look for people who live by kindness, tolerance, compassion, a gentler way of looking at things.

I always say that I've been in a bad mood for maybe 35 years now. I try to lighten it up, but that's what comes out when you get me on camera.

Eradicating a religion of kindness is, I think, a terrible thing for the Chinese to attempt.

I know there were many good policemen who died doing their duty. Some of the cops were even friends of ours. But a cop can go both ways.

Etta James' voice is just as commanding as it was when she was young, but it's different -- deeper, tougher. How could it not be That's what life can do to you.

Cause who's gonna figure the man out We want an answer for everything, but he can't give you the answer You know the man through his art, and he's still going. He doesn't know where he's gonna wind up. He's trying to get home. Like all of us, I guess.

I was born in 1942, so I was mainly aware of Howard Hughes' name on RKO Radio Pictures.

Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out.

The term 'giant' is used too often to describe artists. But in the case of Akira Kurosawa, we have one of the rare instances where the term fits.

I'm very phobic about flying, but I'm also drawn to it.

I don't agree with everything he did in his life, but we're dealing with this Howard Hughes, at this point. And also ultimately the flaw in Howard Hughes, the curse so to speak.

I'm going to be 60, and I'm almost used to myself.

It's a very savage kind of humor, it comes out of a great deal of pain.

I grew up within Italian-American neighborhoods, everybody was coming into the house all the time, kids running around, that sort of stuff, so when I finally got into my own area, so to speak, to make films, I still carried on.

I can't really envision a time when I'm not shooting something.

The reality is, if I don't do PR, I'm hurting the picture. And as many things as I did, that's as many things as I turned down.

I love studying Ancient History and seeing how empires rise and fall, sowing the seeds of their own destruction.

His films became increasingly fascinating to me because of the editing style, a very crisp, clear style of editing that kind of points the audience toward where to look in a scene.

It seems to me that any sensible person must see that violence does not change the world and if it does, then only temporarily.

Every year or so, I try to do something; it keeps me refreshed as to what's going on in front of the lens, and I understand what the actor is going through.

I certainly wasn't able to get it when I was a kid growing up on the Lower East Side; it was very hard at that time for me to balance what I really believed was the right way to live with the violence I saw all around me - I saw too much of it among the people I knew.

I do know that some Buddhists are able to attain peace of mind.

I love the look of planes and the idea of how a plane flies. The more I learn about it the better I feel; while I still may not like it, I have a sense of what is really happening.

This is the first present-day film I've made in 20 years,

If one of the actors from your film is not talking on that screen in the middle of the night, there will be five other actors from five different films talking.

If it's a modern-day story dealing with certain ethnic groups, I think I could open up certain scenes for improvisation, while staying within the structure of the script.

What the Dalai Lama had to resolve was whether to stay in Tibet or leave. He wanted to stay, but staying would have meant the total destruction of Tibet, because he would have died and that would have ripped the heart out of his people.

I think there's only one or two films where I've had all the financial support I needed. All the rest, I wish I'd had the money to shoot another ten days.

There must be people who remember World War II and the Holocaust who can help us get out of this rut.

I also saw the Dalai Lama a few times.

Many of these names on the Walk of Fame bloom larger than life. They created the grammar of cinema.

We couldn't have cared less about the government, especially the city government, which produced policemen who did nothing but take graft.

Howard Hughes was this visionary who was obsessed with speed and flying like a god... I loved his idea of what filmmaking was.