Baz Luhrmann

“I've always loved the old epics that tell a simple emotional story, whether it's the tumultuous relationship between Rhett and Scarlett or Lawrence of Arabia's passion to get lost in a faraway place.”

“If Paris is a city of lights, Sydney is the city of fireworks.”

“The ugly duckling is a misunderstood universal myth. It's not about turning into a blonde Barbie doll or becoming what you dream of being; it's about self-revelation, becoming who you are.”

“In the '80s, everyone wanted to be in opera. It was groovy.”

“There's a whole system in Hollywood where the director never speaks to the studio, but I like to engage them in a discussion. I listen.”

“At a very young age I was allowed to go into the cinema and watch adult films.”

“I understand that anything actors are doing, good or bad, is motivated by fear.”

“I feel funny about owning art. I don't really want to say: 'Wow, come and see my Monet - it's in a dark room at the bottom of my cellar.'”

“You really think that on my films people tell me what to do? I don't think so. On my films I decide.”

“Australia, to the rest of the world, is just far away, and Australia in the Thirties was the faraway of the faraway.”

“I feel a kinship with anyone who feels that their road, their life or who they really are is not good enough. I really relate to that.”

“When I was growing up you would see big American films that really mythologised their landscape, that really showed the vastness and the drama of their country.”

“Western films don't do very well in India.”

“My father made sure that I had lots of levels of education - from ballroom-dancing to painting, commando training, theatre and magic.”

“The party is a true art form in Sydney and people practise it a great deal. You can really get quite lost in it.”

“Sydney is rather like an arrogant lover. When it rains it can deny you its love and you can find it hard to relate to. It's not a place that's built to be rainy or cold. But when the sun comes out, it bats its eyelids, it's glamorous, beautiful, attractive, smart, and it's very hard to get away from its magnetic pull.”

“I often think to myself, at the end of an interesting life it's maybe not such a bad thing to spend your last days with your friends sitting by the blue, blue ocean reliving the story of your life while sitting in the dangerous sun.”

“When you're in theater or the circus or film - to me it's all one - affairs happen. People fall in love.”

“I don't have fights with actors. In absolute honesty, I've never fought with any actor ever.”

“I really believe musical form will go on. There's got to be a way of making musical form in cinema live again.”