Francis Ford Coppola

“The most adventurous thing I've done is learn how to fly a helicopter in the Philippines. One night we landed on a beach and slept on it.”

“The essence of cinema is editing. It's the combination of what can be extraordinary images of people during emotional moments, or images in a general sense, put together in a kind of alchemy...”

“I wrote the script of Patton. I had this very bizarre opening where he stands up in front of an American flag and gives this speech. Ultimately, I was fired. When the script was done, they h...”

“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.”

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

“It is a little disappointing to see that your legs are not as strong. But I like the idea of growing old, and the thought of approaching death is not particularly daunting to me.”

“I just admire people like Woody Allen, who every year writes an original screenplay. It's astonishing. I always wished that I could do that.”

“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.”

“I had a heartbreaking experience when I was 9. I always wanted to be a guard. The most wonderful girl in the world was a guard. When I got polio and then went back to school, they made me a...”

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

“The internet in hotels should be free - and I really resent it when they charge you five dollars for a bottle of water beside your bed.”

“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 colleag...”

“I was always the black sheep of the family and always told that I was dumb, and I had a low IQ and did badly in school.”

“I was a pretty shy, lonely kid. I blossomed about age 17, when I went to college.”

“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 had been a kid that moved so much, I didn't have a lot of friends. Theater really represented camaraderie.”

“I was raised as a Catholic, but I didn't like the Catholic Church at all. I thought the nuns were mean.”

“People feel the worst film I made was 'Jack.' But to this day, when I get checks from old movies I've made, 'Jack' is one of the biggest ones. No one knows that. If people hate the movie, th...”

“Being a former theater student, of course, there is a part of me that is fascinated with stage crafts and what you can do with illusions and working within the confines of the studio.”

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