Federico Fellini

The public has lost the habit of movie-going because the cinema no longer possesses the charm, the hypnotic charisma, the authority it once commanded. The image it once held for us all - that of a dream we dreamt with our eyes open - has disappeared.

Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second, and you can hop from one place to another. It's a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something, as in a dream.

My work has always been the thing that justifies my life.

A created thing is never invented and it is never true: it is always and ever itself.

If you see with innocent eyes, everything is divine.

I'd like very much to make a confident picture. I would like to be as good as nature, which, with a shower, produces flowers and grass to cover the destruction. But we are surrounded by human fragmentation, by pessimism, and it is difficult to talk of other things.

Through the ages, from the beginning of time, I'm certain man has covered woman's face with masks. They are, however, his masks, not hers.

The artist is the medium between his fantasies and the rest of the world.

When I start a picture, I always have a script, but I change it every day. I put in what occurs to me that day out of my imagination. You start on a voyage; you know where you will end up but not what will occur along the way. You want to be surprised.

It is only when I am doing my work that I feel truly alive.