Nicolas Winding Refn Quotes

I didn't go to the cinemas a lot as a kid.

When people said schooldays were the best days of your life, I remember thinking: 'Tell me it's not true. This cannot be it.' I don't think my life has ever been that bad again. It hasn't always been easy but at least I have been free.

When we're growing up there are all sorts of people telling us what to do when really what we need is space to work out who to be.

I was who I was in high school in accordance with the rules of conduct for a normal person, like obeying your mom and dad. Then I got out of high school and moved out of the house, and I just started, for lack of a better term, running free.

Those songs are about getting out; they're not about getting out of family. It wasn't about how family life was curtailing because I didn't know family life.

The best holiday I ever had was the first one I went on without my parents, when I was 17.

Every child is going to grow up. You can see it happen in the books: They get older and older and belong to themselves to a greater and greater extent.

I didn't go to the cinema a lot when I was young.

Anybody that wants to walk out that door and leave home for a few months and rely on themselves instead of fate might have some interesting stories to tell.

I've been going to the movies since I was 6 or 7 years old.

My earliest memory of freedom was when I was about 14 and I stopped caring what people thought about me! I was so free and in charge! That whole year I was exploring myself, and I was so 'free' that I got sent away to boarding school.

Until I was pursuing my collegiate education, I was in Madurai with my parents. Bengaluru was the first place where I was independent. So, the city is very close to my heart.

I can never be who I was. I can simply watch her with sympathy, understanding, and some measure of awe. There she goes, backpack on, headed for the subway or the airport. She did her best with her eyeliner. She learned a new word she wants to try out on you. She is ambling along. She is looking for it.

It was Friday, July 24, 1992, when I stepped on the train. Every year I think of it. I see it as my real birthday: the birth of me as a person, making decisions about my life on my own. I was not running away from Islam, or to democracy. I didn't have any big ideas then. I was just a young girl and wanted some way to be me; so I bolted into the unknown.

You just get out there and be what you want to be. That's part of evolving and part of staying true to yourself - part of remaining alive in a real authentic, long-term sense creatively: not listening to what other people tell you to be.

Some books leave us free and some books make us free.

I think back to my time when I was skating: I was 15, and there was no such thing as Instagram.

The beauty of knowing yourself is nobody else has to.

More than anything, I think my connection to the sea has really helped me develop my independence and a sense of the importance and value of my own vision.

I have traveled the world by myself.

I was so sheltered as a kid that when I went to college, it was like taking the chains off. That's where the trouble came from. It was the first time for me being by myself, and I got into everything you could think of.

I've been able to define who I am and my brother is able to do his thing.

I remember, being young is a scary, wonderful feeling.

It's nice to finally be my own person.

In school, no one teaches you to look for things that are right for you.