Abel Ferrara Quotes

All of the stuff I can't afford to do on a TV budget, I just put into the comic book because you're really only limited in a comic by your artist's imagination.

My goal was, and still is, to write first, direct my own stuff whenever possible and control my own creative destiny.

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

When you give an artist a canvas, you shouldn't tell him exactly how much paint to put on it, or exactly how sharp the images should be. You should let the artist get going.

You have to have a certain amount of limitations, I think, to make art and to make something that can be alive on film. Money can get in the way of that.

I think every artist wants to create something, on their own, without any boundaries.

I'm trying to do the kind of projects that I want to see in the theatre.

I love being creative. I love acting, but I also love directing because you get to have a vision for the whole and bring that vision to fruition.

I'm not in a race with anybody to make the biggest hit movie anymore. I am just trying to tell stories that I can stay interested in for the two years it takes me to supervise the writing and to direct them.

The artist's world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep.

But if I really want to produce my own work and tell stories, then I will.

Writing and directing your own film, for me, has been the best experience of my life.

With the success of 'Spiderwick,' it's allowed me to be able to have the freedom to really be able to tell the stories that I really wanted to tell, that I've always wanted to tell.

When I make a movie, I have both a specific and vague, amorphous dream idea of what the movie is going to be. Of course, I don't actually know what it's going to be, but I'm still striving to get to some place with it.

Artists can do whatever they want!

I don't like directing that much to want a career as a director for hire. I like to have as much creative control as possible.

The wonderful thing about a book is that you have a canvas that is 300 pages wide, and it's all free space. You can make a piece of art as big as you want and whatever shape you want.

The acting is something that will always be a part of my life, but the writing gives me a lot more creative freedom. You're a pawn in somebody else's chess game, whereas as a writer and as a director, you get to call the shots. And that's very thrilling.

Any artist picks and chooses what they want to paint or write about or say. Photographers are the same.

When you're writing, it's all up to you, and you don't have to make any compromises. And when you're directing, there's this intense pleasure you get from working with all these really talented people, and pooling the efforts towards a common goal. I like all the aspects of film-making.

The one thing I'm proud of as a filmmaker is that people are entitled not to like my films - that's the privilege of the public - but I think I have my own imprint.

Definitely directing is the thing I like the most because this is where everything you know can be used. It's the most personal process ever. It's the most demanding one, but again, rewarding.

It's impossible to control the reception of your work - the only thing you can control is the experience of writing itself, and the work you create.

I love the creative process, of getting to create your own show or your own movie, whatever it is you want to do, and have the resources to try and make that happen.

It has nothing to do with commercial success. You cannot calculate in your head how to put the mosaic together to make a commercial film: that's out of the question.