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.
—Federico Fellini
You see me in my most virile moment when you see me doing what I do. When I am directing, a special energy comes upon me … It is only when I am doing my work that I feel truly alive. It is like having sex.
—Federico Fellini
Topics: Enthusiasm, Energy, Work, Talents, Abilities
When I do things without any explanation, but just with spontaneity … I can be sure that I am right.
—Federico Fellini
Topics: Instincts
If I’m a cruel satirist at least I’m not a hyprocrite: I never judge what other people do. Neither a politician nor a priest, I never censor what others do. Neither a philospher nor a psychiatrist, I never bother trying to analyze or resolve my fears and neuroses.
—Federico Fellini
Topics: Hypocrisy
I think that one can have luck if one tries to create an atmosphere of spontaneity.
—Federico Fellini
Topics: Luck, Fortune
Every time I start a picture … I feel the same fear, the same self-doubts … and I have only one source on which I can draw, because it comes from within me.
—Federico Fellini
Topics: Self-reliance, Anxiety, Fear, Confidence
Going to the cinema is like returning to the womb; you sit there, still and meditative in the darkness, waiting for life to appear on the screen.
—Federico Fellini
Our minds can shape the way a thing will be because we act according to our expectations.
—Federico Fellini
Topics: Positive Attitudes, Optimism
All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.
—Federico Fellini
Topics: Autobiography
A different language is a different vision of life.
—Federico Fellini
Topics: Language
Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second and you can hop from one place to another. It’s a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something, as in a dream.
—Federico Fellini
Topics: Dreams
Realism is a bad word. In a sense everything is realistic. I see no line between the imaginary and the real.
—Federico Fellini
Topics: Reality
What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one. It’s this in-between…this frontier country between the tangible world and the intangible one—which is really the realm of the artist.
—Federico Fellini
Topics: The Artist
Censorship is advertising paid by the government.
—Federico Fellini
Topics: Censorship
There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.
—Federico Fellini
Topics: Passion, Romance
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Roman Polanski French Film Director
- Akira Kurosawa Japanese Film Director
- Stanley Kubrick American Film Director
- Jean-luc Godard French-born Swiss Film Director
- Steven Spielberg American Film Director
- Sylvester Stallone American Actor
- Clint Eastwood American Film Director
- Alfred Hitchcock British-born American Film Director
- Sophia Loren Italian Actor
- Cecil B. DeMille American Filmmaker
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