Martin Scorsese Quotes

Working with HBO was an opportunity to experience creative freedom and 'long-form development' that filmmakers didn't have a chance to do before the emergence of shows like 'The Sopranos.'

Every year or so, I try to do something; it keeps me refreshed as to what's going on in front of the lens, and I understand what the actor is going through.

I love the look of planes and the idea of how a plane flies. The more I learn about it the better I feel; while I still may not like it, I have a sense of what is really happening.

Any film, or to me any creative endeavour, no matter who you're working with, is, in many cases, a wonderful experience.

It seems to me that any sensible person must see that violence does not change the world and if it does, then only temporarily.

I go through periods, usually when I'm editing and shooting, of seeing only old films.

I wouldn't presume to be God's point of view.

It is not the most brilliant that excel in film, but the most patient!

Young film makers should learn how to deal with the money and learn how to deal with the power structure. Because it is like a battle.

I know there were many good policemen who died doing their duty. Some of the cops were even friends of ours. But a cop can go both ways.

I didn't realize there are generations who do not know about the origins of film.

There was always a part of me that wanted to be an old-time director. But I couldn't do that. I'm not a pro.

I just wanted to be an ordinary parish priest.

I don't know how else to tell the story except to utilise that vocabulary: the rain, the darkness, the mansions, the framing, etc, the lighting and that sort of thing.

Could you double-check the envelope?

I grew up in the Lower East Side, an Italian American - more Sicilian, actually.

I'm trying to find out what the hell we - who we are.

Mean Streets dealt with the American Dream, according to which everybody thinks they can get rich quick, and if they can't do it by legal means then they'll do it by illegal ones.

The vampire thing always works for some reason. Always works.

A lot of what I'm obsessed with is the relationship and the dynamics between people and the family, particularly brothers and their father.

I happen to like vampires more than zombies.

I'm not videotaping my life, but in a way I am trying to put certain things about myself on canvas.

All my life, I never really felt comfortable anywhere in New York, except maybe in an apartment somewhere.

I'm very phobic about flying, but I'm also drawn to it.

Alcohol decimated the working class and so many people.

Death comes in a flash, and that's the truth of it, the person's gone in less than 24 frames of film.

The problem with anger is that it's so consuming. You've got to take it easy on yourself at a certain point.

You've got to protect whatever creative talent you have left.

My films really have to be a part of a whole body of work that says something to me.

I think there's only one or two films where I've had all the financial support I needed. All the rest, I wish I'd had the money to shoot another ten days.

You gotta understand, when moving images first started, people wanted sound, color, big screen and depth.

I don't think there's a subject matter that can't absorb 3-D; that can't tolerate the addition of depth as a storytelling technique.

All I can do is try to do the best work I can. I need to work, I like to work... although I complain about it, but I do like it - and I just need to make the best film I can.

On the one hand, you're the same person, but as you get older, you change somewhat, and you never know how it's going to affect your work.

If we just sit and exist, and understand that, I think it will be helpful in a world that seems like a record that's going faster and faster, we're spinning off the edge of the universe.

You have to put yourself in a situation, a lifestyle, that makes you do the work. Even if it's a monastery.

My whole life has been movies and religion. That's it. Nothing else.

Zombies, what are you going to do with them? Just keep chopping them up, shooting at them, shooting at them.

There are movies that change the whole way in which films are made, like Klute, where Gordon Willis’s photography on the film is so textured, and, they said, too dark.

I do know that some Buddhists are able to attain peace of mind.

Popular music formed the soundtrack of my life.

If you don’t like the films of Samuel Fuller , then you just don’t like cinema.

I don't think there is any difference between fantasy and reality in the way these should be approached in a film. Of course if you live that way you are clinically insane.

Being independent... is being innovative out of inspiration as well as necessity.

You can be born-again and believe in Jesus, believe in Jesus' ideas and try to live them out, without becoming totally intolerant of other people.

I always wanted to make a film that had this sort of Chinese-box effect, in which you keep opening it up and opening it up, and finally at the end you're at the beginning.

I prefer people who don't get caught, and if they do get caught, I prefer people who don't give in.

It's interesting that these themes of crime and political corruption are always relevant.

I'm going to be 60, and I'm almost used to myself.

I'm trying not to let the anger and the violence that erupt take over my life. I guess it comes with the growing process, I don't know. A little mellowing.