Federico Fellini

Nietzsche claimed that his genius was in his nostrils and I think that is a very excellent place for it to be.

My work has always been the thing that justifies my life.

I do not need a producer. I need only a good production manager. I need only a man who will give me money.

I always direct the same film. I cannot distinguish one from the other.

Through the ages, from the beginning of time, I'm certain man has covered woman's face with masks. They are, however, his masks, not hers.

I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and the rest of it.

A created thing is never invented and it is never true: it is always and ever itself.

The public has lost the habit of movie-going because the cinema no longer possesses the charm, the hypnotic charisma, the authority it once commanded. The image it once held for us all - that of a dream we dreamt with our eyes open - has disappeared.

I'd like very much to make a confident picture. I would like to be as good as nature, which, with a shower, produces flowers and grass to cover the destruction. But we are surrounded by human fragmentation, by pessimism, and it is difficult to talk of other things.

I am not the kind of director who sits in a chair smoking a cigar talking with a microphone to 10 assistants. I need to move. To touch. To put a painting on a wall. To arrange a set.

It's easier to be faithful to a restaurant than it is to a woman.

All artists are equal when they are themselves.

I make pictures to tell a story, to tell lies, and to amuse.

No critic writing about a film could say more than the film itself, although they do their best to make us think the oppposite.

I did not realise that I was so loved. It can't just be for the films. I must have done something else, but I can't remember what.

Fate is written in the face.

God may not play dice but he enjoys a good round of Trivial Pursuit every now and again.

A good opening and a good ending make for a good film provide they come close together.

If you do what you were born to do, I think you will never grow old.

The artist is the medium between his fantasies and the rest of the world.