241 Quotes by Francis Ford Coppola

I have always credited the writer of the original material above the title: Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, or John Grisham’s The Rainmaker. I felt that I didn’t have the right to Francis Coppola’s anything unless I had written the story and the screenplay.

I think it’s better to be overly ambitious and fail than to be underambitious and succeed in a mundane way. I have been very fortunate. I failed upward in my life!

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.

I just finished a film a few days ago, and I came home and said I learned so much today. So if I can come home from working on a little film after doing it for 45 years and say, I learned so much today, that shows something about the cinema. Because the cinema is very young. It’s only 100 years old.

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.

The notebook was my anchor through all of it.

The only TV I would be interested in exploring would be live television. There’s no substitute for a team of artists performing at their peak live when failure is possible. It’s a high-wire act. That excites me.

When that happens – when risk is taken and the filmmakers dive into the subject matter without a parachute – very often what you get it something with those qualities that make it age well with the public.

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