Samuel Fuller Quotes

I hate violence. That has never prevented me from using it in my films.

If a story doesn't give you a hard-on in the first couple of scenes, throw it in the goddamned garbage.

Heroes? Don't believe in them.

I don't care if it's a mystery story, a Western, or the story of Julius Caesar. To me it's the emotion, the lies, the double-cross, whether it's Brutus doing it to Caesar or Bob Stack doing it to Robert Ryan that defines what kind of drama it is.

Extending the language of film sometimes starts with just trying to show one true thing.

There's a difference between a Nazi and a German.

You know how you smoke out a sniper? You send a guy out in the open, and you see if he gets shot. They thought that one up at West Point

We don't murder, we kill.... You don't murder animals, you kill them.

Surviving is the only glory in war.

When I was making these damned pictures, I never knew about film noir. If you had asked me about it then, I probably would have pointed to something like Bill Wellman's The Ox Bow Incident, the best Western I ever saw and very much in the style of film noir I don't care if it's a mystery story, a Western, or the story of Julius Caesar. To me it's the emotion, the lies, the double-cross that defines what kind of drama it is.

Being a hooker does not mean being evil. The same with a pick-pocket, or even a thief. You do what you do out of necessity.

Ninety-five per cent of films are born of frustration, of self despair, of ambition for survival, for money, for fattening bank accounts. Five per cent, maybe less, are made because a man has an idea, an idea which he must express.

Film is a battleground. Love, hate, violence, action, death...In a word, emotion.

When you're at the end of your rope, all you have to do is make one foot move out in front of the other. Just take the next step. That's all there is to it

We got a right to climb out of the sewer and live like other people. We could start from scratch. Make every minute count twice for the one we lost.

Film is a battleground.

The creepy thing about battle is you always feel alone.

Life is in color, but black and white is more realistic.

When you're in the battlefield, survival is all there is.

We have too many intellectuals who are afraid to use the pistol of common sense

If your first scene doesn't give you a hard on, throw it out!

Mark Twain didn't psychoanalyze Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer. Dickens didn't put Oliver Twist on the couch because he was hungry! Good copy comes out of people, Johnny, not out of a lot of explanatory medical terms.

A woman is just a script, but a cigar is a motion picture.

Movement should be a counter, whether in action scenes or dialogue or whatever. It counters where your eye is going. This style thing, for me it's all fitted to the action, to the script, to the characters.

A film is like a battleground. It's love, hate, action, violence, death—In one word, emotions.

We'll build a democracy here, even if it's with Nazi bricks.