Emir Kusturica

“When I was a student looking at Leonardo DaVinci and all those guys - Italian, Dutch, or whatever - it's incredible how each piece of the painting fits to the main theme that they want to express.”

“In Serbia a lot of people hate me because they want to westernize, not understanding that the western world is bipolar, with very good things and very bad things.”

“If you say morality is just what you like, you lose the metaphysical level of what in the history of philosophy is called 'categorical imperative.'”

“Making movies is a dangerous job. Because you are always the one who stands at the center of the universe when making movies.”

“Yugoslavia was a kind of superpower. Great movies. Beautiful novels. Great rock-and-roll. We became a superpower in basketball. The problem is that people needed to identify more strongly with it after Tito and his awful, tricky way of leading the country.”

“Just because I believe in the identity and integrity of my country doesn't make a xenophobe or a nationalist.”

“My relationship with Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is very clear: respect. We met a couple of times; once I received a medal from him. I respect hugely how he brought Russia back from its knees.”

“What you have now is a Hollywood that is pure poison. Hollywood was a central place in the history of art in the 20th century: it was human idealism preserved. And then, like any great place, it collapsed, and it collapsed into the most awful machinery in the world.”

“I am not trying to say I'm a genius, but 'Underground' was the strongest attack there has been on Milosevic. It is about a man who locks his friends in a cellar for 40 years and convinces them that the war is still going on. He uses them, but they still think he is a great guy. And this was shown in every cinema in Serbia.”

“That is a Medieval way of drawing history, in which they do not respect the law and want the rest of the world to respect the law. That's not possible.”

“If the film is not emotional, then it operates on a superficial level.”

“The most difficult part of making movies is to keep making them. Maybe, you could make the biggest hit in the world, but then the big problem is what to do next and how to maintain devoted to a certain instinct that I have about films.”

“I've been around some very famous people, but no one has the effect Maradona has; people tremble in his presence.”

“You know, in each segment of ex-Yugoslavia, multi-ethnic life is lost, except I think we somehow still have this in Serbia.”

“When you make movies the way I do, you invest everything you have. And you do it like a crazy maniac.”

“My purpose is to make a movie to make you warm. To give you some heat. Now, this rational world has become a place where only what is cool is good. Do you cut the movie on the basis of the beat of modernity or the basis of the beat of your own heart?”

“I will always fight for peace. But, unfortunately, it is war that drives us forward. It is war that makes the major turns. It makes Wall Street function; it makes all the bastards in the Balkans function.”

“I've reached the 50th year of my life, and now every question related with life also includes thinking about death. When I leave, I want to leave to my offspring a clear idea about identity.”

“I think the city is the strongest social memory organ of humanity.”

“I'm not anti-American. I was raised to love both sides.”