Sofia Coppola Quotes

Life isn't a science. We make it up as we go.

I like surprising myself. I don't want to do the norm, do what I'm always known to do, write how I like to write.

This is the rock 'n' roll life, and you had to invent it as you went along. There was no textbook to say how you operate this machinery.

I really like to experiment. That's the only way I can work. It's instinctive.

The first scene I ever shot for 'Louie Bluie,' on that first day, I had never seen the camera before. I didn't know where to put it. I just knew what was strong about these guys and what I wanted to capture, so I tried to work backward from there and figure it out. Trial and error. Hopefully I got a little bit better at it.

Life, work - it's all very organic and fluid, a laboratory. I always tell people: whatever your thing is, you just have to be in it. Jump in; you'll figure it out.

It's through working with a lot of first-time directors that I realized that people learn on their feet. Everybody works on something for a different reason. Everybody has got something new to learn on these sets, and you don't have to know everything, the second you start.

The slightest thing can ruin a scene, but you must be willing to take chances.

I'm just sort of making it up as I go along.

With filmmaking in general, I have never absorbed the traditional knowledge of film history or filmmaking. It has always been just pick up the camera and go figure it out.

None. They should just go out and photograph and stop talking about it. That's the only way they are going to find themselves. They can't do it in their heads - they have to go out and do it in the camera and get it on film.

How can you go out on a limb if you do not know your own tree? No art ever came out of not risking your neck. And risk--experiment--is a considerable part of the joy of doing.

Even with college, the reason I wanted to go so badly is because I wanted to major in film. I want to take screenwriting classes and learn more about behind the scenes stuff, because I love people like Steve Carell and Kristen Wiig who are able to write a lot of their own material and be so involved in everything they do.

Like everybody, I'm making up my life as I go along.

If you wait until the right time to have a child you'll die childless, and I think film making is very much the same thing. You just have to take the plunge and just start shooting something even if it's bad.

I don't like improvising on camera, particularly, but very often, a scene will not be working, and you rehearse it once or twice, and you realize something's missing. So I'll play with it until it makes sense.

The tension I feel is the moment they say, 'Action!' Movies are like lightning in a bottle, and you always want to find when you possibly can catch a surprising moment.

I think there are actors who are like, 'Okay, what am I doing, how am I doing it, what's the appeal? Tell me what to do, what are the exact lines from the script? Okay, I got it.' I am not that way. I would be a terrible bus driver. I'd want to be like, 'Oh, let's take this side road! Let's see what happens when we go down this back alley.'

I love acting; I don't want to give up on it at all, but it would be nice to step behind the camera once in a while as well.

I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote 'Search.' There was no carefully designed work plan. There was no theory that I was out to prove.

I love to play things that are out-of-the-box. It's just that I don't always get the chance to do it!

I'm not a trained chef, so I end up making stuff up. It either turns out brilliant or an absolute disaster. I just go for it.

I just throw it out and see what happens. If it sounds and feels right, then I continue.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails, but that's what we face when we're dealing with improvisation.

I reverted easily to my wild state, that is experimentation.