Quotes from Abel Ferrara

Making money is not gonna change anything about what I am, except I won't answer the door.

The more you get into any religion, it becomes the same. It really becomes how you treat other people and how you get outside yourself. How you look to help other people, and how you get out of this 'I, me, mine' type of thing.

But I'm never gonna get to a point in my life where what it costs to shoot a movie is going to determine what it is. The limits of my imagination is the only thing that's gonna stop me.

It's funny, the hardest thing to do is to make something look like it's fast, loose and improvised, and get somebody to laugh.

I'm about my characters.

I'm a lapsed Buddhist like I'm a lapsed Catholic. I take it to a point.

I'm not a big fan of talking about dying. And then I make a movie where I kill everybody.

No one can stop me from talking about my movie.

It's only Western civilization that, God forbid, you talk about dying, when it's the only thing we know for certain, right? Everyone's going to die, so what's the big problem? 'Oh, God. Don't talk about it. Don't think about it.' I mean, I'm one of them. I'm not a big fan of talking about dying.

I was raised a Catholic and when you're raised a Catholic they don't teach you to think for yourself. You're taught not to think too deeply about things.

I don't have a problem with Werner Herzog.

A script is not a piece of literature it's a process.

With 'New Rose Hotel,' I knew that I was getting paid a $100,000 fee to write, produce, and direct, and that's all I was going to get.

There's no such thing as a non-final cut director.

My life is proof that I don't need you to do what I do. If there's no one to see it, I'll watch it.

I don't care if I get $50m to do a film.

I come from a world where you get the film done, that's a success.

It's funny, the hardest thing to do is to make something look like it's fast, loose and improvised, and get somebody to laugh.

The last day of your life is still going to be a day.

But I'm never gonna get to a point in my life where what it costs to shoot a movie is going to determine what it is. The limits of my imagination is the only thing that's gonna stop me.

Where I come from you're not raised to think on your own. It's not that you're pushed to read the Bible. The Bible is read to you.

Making money is not gonna change anything about what I am, except I won't answer the door.

In the film business, it's basically honor among thieves.

I grew up in the '60s, which was a creative time, so it wasn't that big of a stretch to go from a baseball bat to a guitar to a film camera.