Francis Ford Coppola – 21 Quotes

21 Quotes by Francis Ford Coppola

It’s ironic that at age 32, at probably the greatest moment of my career, with The Godfather having such an enormous success, I wasn’t even aware of it, because I was somewhere else under the deadline again.

– Francis Ford Coppola

I don’t think there’s any artist of any value who doesn’t doubt what they’re doing.

– Francis Ford Coppola

I’m no longer dependent on the movie business to make a living. So if I want to make movies as other old guys would play golf, I can.

– Francis Ford Coppola

Listen, if there’s one sure-fire rule that I have learned in this business, it’s that I don’t know anything about human nature.

– Francis Ford Coppola

I had a heartbreaking experience when I was 9. I always wanted to be a guard. The most wonderful girl in the world was a guard. When I got polio and then went back to school, they made me a guard. A teacher took away my guard button.

– Francis Ford Coppola

I had a number of very strong personalities in my family. My father was a concert flutist, the solo flute for Toscanini.

– Francis Ford Coppola

They needed someone to write a script of The Great Gatsby very quickly for the movie they were making. I took this job so I’d be sure to have some dough to support my family.

– Francis Ford Coppola

When I was going for my graduate degree, I decided I was going to make a feature film as my thesis. That’s what I was famous for-that I had my thesis film be a feature film, which was ‘You’re a Big Boy Now.’

– Francis Ford Coppola

We were raised in an Italian-American household, although we didn’t speak Italian in the house. We were very proud of being Italian, and had Italian music, ate Italian food.

– Francis Ford Coppola

It takes no imagination to live within your means.

– Francis Ford Coppola

As long as I can make lots of money in other businesses, I’ll continue to subsidize my own work.

– Francis Ford Coppola

I was never sloppy with other people’s money. Only my own. Because I figure, well, you can be.

– Francis Ford Coppola

We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little, we went insane.

– Francis Ford Coppola

I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.

– Francis Ford Coppola

I wanted to write and direct movies and not be forced to adapt them from a bestselling book.

– Francis Ford Coppola

I’ve been offered lots of movies. There’s always some actor who’s doing a project and would like to have me do it. But you look at the project and think, ‘Gee, there are a lot of good directors who could do that.’ I’d like to do something only I can do.

– Francis Ford Coppola

People feel the worst film I made was ‘Jack.’ But to this day, when I get checks from old movies I’ve made, ‘Jack’ is one of the biggest ones. No one knows that. If people hate the movie, they hate the movie. I just wanted to work with Robin Williams.

– Francis Ford Coppola

Steven Spielberg is unique. I feel that the kinds of movies he loves are the same kinds of movies that the big mass audience loves. He’s very fortunate because he can do the things he naturally likes the best, and he’s been very successful.

– Francis Ford Coppola

When newspapers started to publish the box office scores of movies, I was horrified. Those results are totally fake because they never include the promotion budget.

– Francis Ford Coppola

Most Italians who came to this country are very patriotic. There was this exciting possibility that if you worked real hard, and you loved something, you could become successful.

– Francis Ford Coppola

I landed a job with Roger Corman. The job was to write the English dialogue for a Russian science fiction picture. I didn’t speak any Russian. He didn’t care whether I could understand what they were saying he wanted me to make up dialogue.

– Francis Ford Coppola