Frank Capra was a prop man, I think. John Ford was a prop man. It was a little bit of a father and son thing, and you kind of worked your way up.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

George Lucas doesn't have the most physical stamina. He was so unhappy making Star Wars that he just vowed he'd never do it again.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

I associate my motion picture career more with being unhappy and scared, or being under the gun, than with anything pleasant.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

I had a heartbreaking experience when I was 9. I always wanted to be a guard. The most wonderful girl in the world was a guard. When I got polio and then went back to school, they made me a guard. A teacher took away my guard button.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

I had a number of very strong personalities in my family. My father was a concert flutist, the solo flute for Toscanini.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

I landed a job with Roger Corman. The job was to write the English dialogue for a Russian science fiction picture. I didn't speak any Russian. He didn't care whether I could understand what they were saying; he wanted me to make up dialogue.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

I made this movie for $40,000, which was this little black-and-white horror film called Dementia 13, which we made in about nine days.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

I remember growing up with television, from the time it was just a test pattern, with maybe a little bit of programming once in a while.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

I remember teachers who really singled me out for their discouragement.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

I wrote the script of Patton. I had this very bizarre opening where he stands up in front of an American flag and gives this speech. Ultimately, I was fired. When the script was done, they hired another writer and that script was forgotten.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

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.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

My film is not a movie; it's not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

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.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

The essence of cinema is editing. It's the combination of what can be extraordinary images of people during emotional moments, or images in a general sense, put together in a kind of alchemy.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

The stuff that I got in trouble for, the casting for The Godfather or the flag scene in Patton, was the stuff that was remembered, and was considered the good work.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

We were raised in an Italian-American household, although we didn't speak Italian in the house. We were very proud of being Italian, and had Italian music, ate Italian food.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

When I do a novel, I don't really use the script, I use the book; when I did Apocalypse Now, I used Heart of Darkness. Novels usually have so much rich material.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

When I was about 9, I had polio, and people were very frightened for their children, so you tended to be isolated. I was paralyzed for a while, so I watched television.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

You have to really be courageous about your instincts and your ideas. Otherwise you'll just knuckle under, and things that might have been memorable will be lost.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote

You ought to love what you're doing because, especially in a movie, over time you really will start to hate it.
- Francis Ford Coppola Quote