Quotes from Terrence Malick

There's a good many pictures I'd like to make; we'll see how many I'll be allowed to make.

What's this war in the heart of Nature? Why does Nature vie with itself? The Land contend with the Sea? Is there an avenging power in Nature? Not one power, but two?

Nostalgia is a powerful feeling; it can drown out anything.

I have trouble working off things that are too preconceived, like storyboards.

I prefer working behind the camera.

When things become too prepared, the life comes out of it.

When people express what is most important to them, it often comes out in cliches. That doesn't make them laughable; it's something tender about them. As though in struggling to reach what's most personal about them they could only come up with what's most public.

I film quite a bit of footage, then edit. Changes before your eyes, things you can do and things you can't. My attitude is always 'let it keep rolling.'

Martin Sheen was extraordinary. He's a very gifted man.

If you try to make things happen, they start to feel presented. They start to feel premeditated.

I was not a good teacher; I didn't have the sort of edge one should have on the students, so I decided to do something else.

I'd always liked movies in a kind of naive way. They seemed no less improbable a career than anything else.

I film quite a bit of footage, then edit. Changes before your eyes, things you can do and things you can't. My attitude is always 'let it keep rolling.'

Changes before your eyes, things you can do and things you can't. My attitude is always let it keep rolling.

You can't live in Austin and escape the music.

I came to Los Angeles in the fall of 1969 to study at the AFI.