Francis Ford Coppola Quotes

Filmmaking is incredible introspective. It forces you to sort of examine yourself in new ways.

A writer needs a life of introspection.

The story of 'Lasers' is my story. I didn't have to look too far to get subject matter for this record; it was stuff that was happening to me.

Making movies is a way of understanding myself and the world.

I love the work, I love being in front of the camera and working with actors and directors and creating something. For me, it's like learning everyday.

I've taken a look back at my body of work and tried to deduce an essence, capturing aspects that reoccur. Reflecting on your own product can be difficult yet enthralling.

I've really taken time to dive into my heart and my emotions a little more. I think, before, I was a little nervous to open up that box and go, 'What's in there,' you know? Now, that's what's made the best music, and that's what I've been able to pull out of parts of myself that I never knew existed.

Every movie changes you. The process of making a film changes you. You have to be obsessed, you have to get up at 3 in the morning and go "Wait, I have an idea!" You have to continually be drawn over and over again to deepening inside that story, and ruminating over questions: "Why would he say this to her? Why if he was standing there, would she go?" Every one of those answers has to come from some personal place, and in order to do that, you can't sit on the surface. It's such a big change that you can't really explain it to anyone else.

How can we learn self-knowledge? Never by taking thought but rather by action. Try to do your duty and you'll soon discover what you're like.

Having children made me go down a road of serious introspection and self-examination. I think it's informed and hopefully enhanced my creativity.

Maybe when I stop making movies, I'll understand my work better.

I can't remember why or how I started writing, but I think it was always a way of making sense of the world.

'Birdman' came from a very beautiful side of me, from a part of honesty and surrender about things.

I began observing, making paintings of my surroundings, taking a vow of silence, listening, composing music, writing, and making time for formal education. Then I started telling stories.

The individual - man as a man, man as a brain, if you like - interests me more than what he makes because I've noticed that most artists only repeat themselves.

Silence, exile, cunning and so on... it's my nature to keep quiet about most things. Even the ideas in my work.

When I got large enough to go to work, while employed I was reflecting on many things that would present themselves to my imagination; and whenever an opportunity occurred of looking at a book, when the school-children were getting their lessons, I would find many things that the fertility of my own imagination had depicted to me before.

With every project you do, you bring out a part of yourself, and it seems to be quite a good way of expanding a person.

I am deeply in tune with my heart and core, and it's made me a better writer, artist, and most of all woman. It's made me more myself.

Songwriting is like going to church. I'm connecting to something, and it's rewarding in really important ways. I don't need to share it with anyone to feel good about it.

If to live is to progress, if you are lucky, from foolishness to wisdom, then to write novels is to broadcast the various stages of your foolishness.

I've always used poetry to explain myself to myself. These things just sat in my psyche and then came out.

I love how people in this business push themselves to know themselves, the world, and their creativity better.

The more I do in my life, the more I can write music about new experiences.

I'm interested in trying to explore what I think is the truth at a given time in my life, and part of the process of being honest is - in my mind - talking about the idea that you're watching a movie. You're sitting here watching a movie. And I like that. It appeals to me intellectually, and also in a way I can't even explain.