A biography for Francis Ford Coppolahasn’t been written yet.
“I just admire people like Woody Allen, who every year writes an original screenplay. It's astonishing. I always wished that I could do that.”
“By working in the morning, I find a sense of peace; it's isolated peace, but I can definitely be in touch with my feelings, and then I just start.”
“Most Italians who came to this country are very patriotic. There was this exciting possibility that if you worked real hard, and you loved something, you could become successful.”
“The most adventurous thing I've done is learn how to fly a helicopter in the Philippines. One night we landed on a beach and slept on it.”
“In a sense, I think a movie is really a little like a question and when you make it, that's when you get the answer.”
“Roger Corman exploited all of the young people who worked for him, but he really gave you responsibility and opportunity. So it was kind of a fair deal.”
“Sequels are not done for the audience or cinema or the filmmakers. It's for the distributor. The film becomes a brand.”
“Art depends on luck and talent.”
“I wanted to write and direct movies and not be forced to adapt them from a bestselling book.”
“I realized I probably wouldn't make another film that cuts through commercial and creative things like 'Godfather' or 'Apocalypse.'”
“It takes no imagination to live within your means.”
“I'm no longer dependent on the movie business to make a living. So if I want to make movies as other old guys would play golf, I can.”
“I became quite successful very young, and it was mainly because I was so enthusiastic and I just worked so hard at it.”
“I gladly, I voluntarily gave up the kind of commercial film career I had going as soon as I had enough money to finance my own films.”
“'The Godfather' changed my life, for better or worse. It definitely made me have an older man's film career when I was 29.”
“I associate my motion picture career more with being unhappy and scared, or being under the gun, than with anything pleasant.”
“I was always the black sheep of the family and always told that I was dumb, and I had a low IQ and did badly in school.”
“When a movie is about to come out on its initial debut, there are a lot of people involved - the financiers, the studio and the producers and also, many times, the foreign distributors. So it is a time of tremendous pressure and uncertainty.”
“My film is not a movie; it's not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam.”
“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.”