When newspapers started to publish the box office scores of movies, I was horrified. Those results are totally fake because they never include the promotion budget.

I think it's better to be overly ambitious and fail than to be underambitious and succeed in a mundane way. I have been very fortunate. I failed upward in my life!

Ten Days That Shook The World, by Eisenstein, I went to see it, and I was so impressed with this film, so impressed with what cinema could do.

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.

I believe that filmmaking - as, probably, is everything - is a game you should play with all your cards, and all your dice, and whatever else you've got. So, each time I make a movie, I give it everything I have. I think everyone should, and I think everyone should do everything they do that way.

It's ironic that at age 32, at probably the greatest moment of my career, with The Godfather having such an enormous success, I wasn't even aware of it, because I was somewhere else under the deadline again.

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. I didn't make that money necessarily from the film business, but I eventually made a lot of money and that's what I do. Of course, I consider myself unbelievably fortunate, and I'm pretty content with my life.