"Art is the objectification of feeling"

"Well, Art is Art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know."

"Asparagus in a lean in a lean is to hot. This makes it art and it is wet weather wet weather wet"

"Make your life your art. It doesn't have to be that you're an artist. I know I talk about art a lot, but I mean a very broad thing with that. You could be a veterinarian, that's your art. Find your art; find your thing you love."

"If I want to pursue the art of painting - or music or writing or sculpture - it requires only my time and a few dollars for materials. If, however, I want to produce a motion picture I have to go out and raise a million dollars!"

"I don't like television when it gets near to photographed plays."

"To speak of morals in art is to speak of legislature in sex. Art is the sex of the imagination."

"To speak of morals in art is to speak of legislature in sex. Art is the sex of the imagination."

"Criticism is the windows and chandeliers of art: it illuminates the enveloping darkness in which art might otherwise rest only vaguely discernible, and perhaps altogether unseen."

"Art is the sex of the imagination."

"Music is the one art we all have inside. We may not be able to play an instrument, but we can sing along or clap or tap our feet. Have you ever seen a baby bouncing up and down in the crib in time to some music? When you think of it, some of that baby's first messages from his or her parents may have been lullabies, or at least the music of their speaking voices. All of us have had the experience of hearing a tune from childhood and having that melody evoke a memory or a feeling. The music we hear early on tends to stay with us all our lives."

"...there is no true understanding of any art without some knowledge of its philosophy. Only then does its meaning come clear."

"Art for art's sake is a philosophy of the well-fed."

"Space is the breath of art."

"If it sells, it's art."

"I have much to learn from my daughter Sofia. Her minimalism exposes my limitations: I'm too instinctive and operatic, I put too much heart into my work, I get lost sometimes in bizarre things - it's my Italian heritage."

"I've been blessed with enough wealth that I can make a film myself up to a certain budget. So one way I thought I would reinvent myself was just to make these very small, personal films that I've financed myself."

"I was a pretty shy, lonely kid. I blossomed about age 17, when I went to college."

"To make great movies, there is an element of risk. You have to say, 'Well, I am going to make this film, and it is not really a sure thing.'"

"The time a movie is made is unique, not only from the talent that is available but if the public was ready for it."

"I live near San Francisco in the most beautiful spot on earth and enjoy myself in many ways. Yes, I love to work, which for now is to think and read and write, so it's all a dream come true."

"I know that if a film is ready to emerge out of what I write, I'll be able to go off and make it without asking anyone's permission."

"Some critics are stimulating in that they make you realise how you could do better, and those are valued."

"I don't see any method at all...Sir"