Quotes from Francis Ford Coppola

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

I have more of a vivid imagination than I have talent. I cook up ideas. It's just a characteristic.

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

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.

My company and people think I'm wacky when I have an idea... I know if I have an idea, no one will want to go through it. But if I persist, people will go through it.

All of a sudden, there are great Japanese films, or great Italian films, or great Australian films. It's usually because there are a number of people that cross-pollinated each other.

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

My family were symphonic musicians and in the opera. Also, it was my era, the love of radio. We used to listen to the radio at night, close our eyes and see movies far more beautiful than you can photograph.

I landed a job with Roger Corman. The job was to write the English dialogue for a Russian science fiction picture. I didn't speak any Russian. He didn't care whether I could understand what they were saying; he wanted me to make up dialogue.

To make great movies, there is an element of risk. You have to say, 'Well, I am going to make this film, and it is not really a sure thing.'

We had access to too much equipment, too much money, and little by little we went insane.

I think a sequel is a waste of money and time. I think movies should illuminate new stories.

I gladly, I voluntarily gave up the kind of commercial film career I had going as soon as I had enough money to finance my own films.

I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.

Listen, if there's one sure-fire rule that I have learned in this business, it's that I don't know anything about human nature.

Whom God wishes to destroy, He first makes successful in show business.

I like to work in the morning. I like to sometimes go to a place where I'm all alone where I'm not going to get a phone call early that hurts my feelings, because once my feelings are hurt, I'm dead in the water.

When I was sixteen or seventeen, I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a playwright. But everything I wrote, I thought, was weak. And I can remember falling asleep in tears because I had no talent the way I wanted to have.

I wanted to be a film student again, as a man in my 60s. To go someplace alone and see what you can cook up, with non-existent budgets. I didn't want to be surrounded by comforts and colleagues, which you have when when you're a big time director. I wanted to write personal works.

I've been blessed with enough wealth that I can make a film myself up to a certain budget. So one way I thought I would reinvent myself was just to make these very small, personal films that I've financed myself.

I probably have genius. But no talent.

I was the kind of kid that had some talents or ability, but it never came out in school.

In kindergarten that used to be my job, to tell them fairytales. I liked Hans Christian Andersen, and the Grimm fairy tales, all the classic fairy tales.

Although knowledge of structure is helpful, real creativity comes from leaps of faith in which you jump to something illogical. But those leaps form the memorable moments in movies and plays.