Quotes from Baz Luhrmann

When you're in theater or the circus or film - to me it's all one - affairs happen. People fall in love.

The food in Sydney is an Asian Pacific cuisine. It's eclectic but above all it's fresh, inventive and creative and that's what I love about it.

I grew up around jazz. I love jazz.

If Paris is a city of lights, Sydney is the city of fireworks.

Trust yourself that you can do it and get it

At a very young age I was allowed to go into the cinema and watch adult films.

I feel funny about owning art. I don't really want to say: "Wow, come and see my Monet - it's in a dark room at the bottom of my cellar."

So, what is creative freedom? We can make what we want, how we want. The only constraint is: not for any budget.

All good, clean stories are melodrama; it's just the set of devices that determines how you show or hide it.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings, they're your best link to your past. And the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Ultimately, you have to pursue your own path, not someone's idea of the right path. You need to stay on your path.

I really believe musical form will go on. There's got to be a way of making musical form in cinema live again.

In terms of the mechanics of story, myth is an intriguing one because we didn't make myth up; myth is an imprinture of the human condition.

The ugly duckling is a misunderstood universal myth. It's not about turning into a blonde Barbie doll or becoming what you dream of being; it's about self-revelation, becoming who you are.

Everything I make starts very personally.

In the '80s, everyone wanted to be in opera. It was groovy.

Fitzgerald coined the phrase the 'Jazz Age,' and now we're living in the Hip-Hop Age.

I've tried to make 'Strictly Ballroom' impossible to date. It does feel a bit '80s but I consciously made sure there was no technology in the movie that could date it.

I feel like a member of any group comprised of outsiders.

The party is a true art form in Sydney and people practise it a great deal. You can really get quite lost in it.

When I was growing up you would see big American films that really mythologised their landscape, that really showed the vastness and the drama of their country.

There's a whole system in Hollywood where the director never speaks to the studio, but I like to engage them in a discussion. I listen.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth.

Sydney is rather like an arrogant lover. When it rains it can deny you its love and you can find it hard to relate to. It's not a place that's built to be rainy or cold. But when the sun comes out, it bats its eyelids, it's glamorous, beautiful, attractive, smart, and it's very hard to get away from its magnetic pull.