Martin Scorsese Quotes

“Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out.”

“Film in the 20th century, it's the American art form, like jazz.”

“Food tells you everything about the way people live and who they are.”

“I always say that I've been in a bad mood for maybe 35 years now. I try to lighten it up, but that's what comes out when you get me on camera.”

“I always tell the younger filmmakers and students: Do it like the painters used to... Study they old masters. Enrich your palette. Expand the canvas. There's always so much more to learn.”

“I happen to like vampires more than zombies. The vampire thing always works for some reason. Always works.”

“I love studying Ancient History and seeing how empires rise and fall, sowing the seeds of their own destruction.”

“I think all of us, under certain circumstances, could be capable of some very despicable acts. And that's why, over the years, in my movies I've had characters who didn't care what people thought about them. We try to be as true to them as possible and maybe see part of ourselves in there that we may not like.”

“I was saying as a joke the other day that I love film editing, I know how to cut a picture, I think I know how to shoot it, but I don't know how to light it. And I realize it's because I didn't grow up with light. I grew up in tenements.”

“I would ask: Given the nature of free-market capitalism – where the rule is to rise to the top at all costs – is it possible to have a financial industry hero? And by the way, this is not a pop-culture trend we're talking about. There aren't many financial heroes in literature, theater or cinema.”

“I'm an older generation.”

“I'm not a Hollywood director. I'm an in spite of Hollywood director.”

“If everything moves along and there are no major catastrophes we're basically headed towards holograms.”

“If your mother cooks Italian food, why should you go to a restaurant?”

“It seems to me that any sensible person must see that violence does not change the world and if it does, then only temporarily.”

“It's hard to let new stuff in. And whether that admits a weakness, I don't know.”

“It's interesting that these themes of crime and political corruption are always relevant.”

“More than ninety percent of directing a picture is the right casting.”

“My whole life has been movies and religion. That's it. Nothing else.”

“No matter where the cinema goes, we cannot afford to lose sight of its beginnings.”

“Now more than ever we need to talk to each other, to listen to each other and understand how we see the world, and cinema is the best medium for doing this.”

“On every film you suffer, but on some you really suffer.”

“Our world is so glutted with useless information, images, useless images, sounds, all this sort of thing. It's a cacophony, it's like a madness I think that's been happening in the past twenty-five years. And I think anything that can help a person sit in a room alone and not worry about it is good.”

“People have to start talking to know more about other cultures and to understand each other.”

“Stanley Kubrick was unique in the sense that with each new film he redefined the medium and its possibilities. But he was more than just a technical innovator. Like all visionaries, he spoke the truth. And no matter how comfortable we think we are with the truth, it always comes as a profound shock when we're forced to meet it face-to-face.”

“The young people today are the 21st century.”

“There are times when you have to face your enemies, sit down and deal with it.”

“There are two kinds of power you have to fight. The first is the money, and that's just our system. The other is the people close around you, knowing when to accept their criticism, knowing when to say no.”

“There's a way that the force of disappointment can be alchemized into something that will paradoxically renew you.”

“There's no such thing as simple. Simple is hard.”