Federico Fellini Quotes

I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.

Borges is particularly stimulating to a man who works in the cinema, because the unusual thing about his writing is that it is like a dream, extraordinarily farsighted in calling up from the unconscious complete images in which the thing itself, and its meaning, coexist - exactly as happens in a film. And, just as happens in dreams, in Borges the incongruous, the absurd, the contradictory, the arcane and the repetitive, although as powerfully imaginative as ever, are at the same time illumined like the careful details of something larger, something unknown, and are the faultless elements of a cruelly perfect, indifferent mosaic. Even the fact that Borges's work is strangely fragmentary makes me think of a broken dreamlike flow; and the heterogeneous quality of his work - stories, essays, poems - I prefer to see not as the union of the multiple threads in a greedy, impatient talent, but as a mysterious sign of unending change.

Cinema is an old whore, like circus and variety, who knows how to give many kinds of pleasure. Besides, you can’t teach old fleas new dogs.

There is abundant testimony that if we choose love rather than self, we gain immeasurably.

Cinéma-vérité? I prefer 'cine-mendacity'. A lie is always more interesting than the truth...Fiction may have a greater truth than everyday, obvious reality.'''

Money is everywhere but so is poetry. What we lack are the poets.

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.

Il bello sarebbe meno ingannevole e insidioso se cominciasse a venir considerato bello tutto ciò che dà un'emozione, indipendentemente dai canoni stabiliti.

Even the most miserable life is better than a sheltered existence in an organized society where everything is calculated and perfected.

Chaque langue voit le monde d’une manière différente.

Experience is what you get while looking for something else.

Понякога завиждам на живописците. Когато ме посети Балтус, той ми каза, че ми завиждал, задето правя изкуство, което се движи. Аз пък му завиждах, защото можеше да работи всеки божи ден от живота си. Трябваха ми само бои, платно и малко супа.

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

A created thing is never invented and it is never true: it is always and ever itself.

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