Federico Fellini Quotes

Our minds can shape the way a thing will be because we act according to our expectations.

Experience is what you get while looking for something else.

I don't like the idea of "understanding" a film. I don't believe that rational understanding is an essential element in the reception of any work of art. Either a film has something to say to you or it hasn't. If you are moved by it, you don't need it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it.

One of the greatest handicaps is to fear a mistake. You have stopped yourself. You have to move freely into the arena, not just to wait for the perfect situation, the perfect moment ... If you have to make a mistake, it's better to make a mistake of action than one of inaction. If I had the opportunity again, I would take chances.

Fate is written in the face.

Only the early Fitzgerald was great. Then came an orgy of brutal realism

Going to the cinema is like returning to the womb; you sit there still and meditative in the darkness, waiting for life to appear on the screen. One should go to the cinema with the innocence of a fetus

Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me.

The greatest danger for artists is total freedom.

Realism is a bad word. In a sense everything is realistic. I see no line between the imaginary and the real.

Peellaert's comic strips were the literature of intelligence, imagination and romanticism.

As I don't consider myself exceptional, but simply a storyteller, each of my stories is really a period of my life. Deep down I feel that criticism of my work-which is the most sincere and authentic vision of myself-is unsuitable and immodest, whether it is favorable or unfavorable.

I spent my life trying to cure myself of my education.

One doesn't remember one's own life chronologically, the way it happened, what was most important, or even what seemed most important. We are not in control of our memories. One doesn't own one's memories. One is owned by them.

The artist is the medium between his fantasies and the rest of the world.

When I do things without any explanation, but just with spontaneity ... I can be sure that I am right.

It's easier to be faithful to a restaurant than it is to a woman.

Regrets are a waste of time. They're the past crippling you in the present.

Don't tell me what I'm doing; I don't want to know.

Marriage is a tyranny, a mortification of man's natural instincts. Man needs a multiplicity of relationships.

There is no such thing as a good paparazzo. A good paparazzo, that's a paparazzo who has had his camera broken. In fact, they are bandits, thieves of photography. (Statement after photographs were published showing Jackie Onassis sunbathing nude.)

Nothing is more honest than a dream.

A different language is a different vision of life.

I never make moral judgments; I'm not qualified to do so. I am not a censor, a priest, or a politician.

If there were a little more silence, if we all kept quiet ... maybe we could understand something.

An artist is a provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one. It's this in-between that I'm calling a province, this frontier country between the tangible world and the intangible one. That is the realm of the artist.

Nothing is sadder than laughter; nothing more beautiful, more magnificent, more uplifting and enriching than the terror of deep despair.

Nietzsche claimed that his genius was in his nostrils and I think that is a very excellent place for it to be.

You see me in my most virile moment when you see me doing what I do. When I am directing, a special energy comes upon me ... It is only when I am doing my work that I feel truly alive. It is like having sex.

The only place where you can be a dictator and still be loved is on the movie set

You have to live spherically - in many directions. Never lose your childish enthusiasm - and things will come your way.

Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second and you can hop from one place to another. It's a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something, as in a dream.

Every time I start a picture ... I feel the same fear, the same self-doubts ... and I have only one source on which I can draw, because it comes from within me.

I always direct the same film. I can't distinguish one from the other.

We can all pretend to be cynical and scheming, but when we're faced with purity and innocence, the cynical mask drops off.

According to the doctors, I'm only suffering from a light form of premature baldness.

A good opening and a good ending make for a good film provide they come close together.

Reality! But what does this word mean? Each has his own reality. I draw upon my personal reality upon the dark side of myself, my unconscious.

The picture is in your head, in your imagination, everything.

Loneliness is a heavy burden, but i'd rather be alone than make compromises.

All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster's autobiography.

Georgian film is a completely unique phenomenon, vivid, philosophically inspiring, very wise, childlike. There is everything that can make me cry and I ought to say that it (my crying) is not an easy thing.

No matter what happens, always Keep your childhood innocence. It's the most important thing.

Put yourself into life and never lose your openness, your childish enthusiasm throughout the journey that is life, and things will come your way.

Never trust a woman who doesn't like to eat. She is probably lousy in bed.

Happiness is simply a temporary condition that proceeds unhappiness. Fortunately for us, it works the other way around as well. But it's all a part of the carnival, isn't it?