Francis Ford Coppola

When I do a novel, I don't really use the script, I use the book; when I did Apocalypse Now, I used Heart of Darkness. Novels usually have so much rich material.

Ten Days That Shook The World, by Eisenstein, I went to see it, and I was so impressed with this film, so impressed with what cinema could do.

I thought I wanted to be a playwright because I was interested in stories and telling stories.

Sound is your friend because sound is much cheaper than picture, but it has equal effect on the audience - in some ways, perhaps more effect because it does it in a very indirect way.

I think it's better to be overly ambitious and fail than to be underambitious and succeed in a mundane way. I have been very fortunate. I failed upward in my life!

I realized I probably wouldn't make another film that cuts through commercial and creative things like 'Godfather' or 'Apocalypse.'

Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos.

I remember teachers who really singled me out for their discouragement.

Everything I do is personal. I have never made a movie that didn't have very strong personal resonance.

The only TV I would be interested in exploring would be live television. There's no substitute for a team of artists performing at their peak live when failure is possible. It's a high-wire act. That excites me.

Without a doubt, I was born to want to make cinema, but the kind of cinema I want to make is not like commercial movies, which I enjoy myself, but I wanted to be the kind of filmmaker who wrote original work, sort of like a novelist would who deals with who we are and our times or our relationships.

'Godfather' was very classical - the way it was shot, the style - the whole driving force of it was more classical, almost Shakespearean.

I know that if a film is ready to emerge out of what I write, I'll be able to go off and make it without asking anyone's permission.

I liked to work in a shop down in the basement and invent things and build gadgets.

It takes no imagination to live within your means.

I had a number of teachers who hated me. I didn't do well in school.

When newspapers started to publish the box office scores of movies, I was horrified. Those results are totally fake because they never include the promotion budget.

I associate my motion picture career more with being unhappy and scared, or being under the gun, than with anything pleasant.

I used to love going into local hardware stores, to look at little things they made locally. Nowadays it's harder, though you can still do it in Vietnam.

We support each other in the Coppola family. We love the idea of everyone getting his place in the sun.