Federico Fellini Quotes

1920–1993 Italy

Federico Fellini (20 January 1920 – 31 October 1993) was a highly esteemed and influential Italian film director. Fellini's films typically combine memory, dreams, and fantasy.

Italy
Film directors

Random Federico Fellini quote

23 quotes

All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.

I think television has betrayed the meaning of democratic speech, adding visual chaos to the confusion of voices. What role does silence have in all this noise?

I'm a Born Liar (2003)

There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.

Fellini on Fellini (1976)

A good opening and a good ending make for a good film provided they come close together.

I'm a Born Liar (2003)

Money is everywhere but so is poetry. What we lack are the poets.

I'm a Born Liar (2003)

God may not play dice but he enjoys a good round of Trivial Pursuit every now and again.

I'm a Born Liar (2003)

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

I'm a Born Liar (2003)

I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and the rest of it.

I'm a Born Liar (2003)

Cinema is an old whore, like circus and variety, who knows how to give many kinds of pleasure. Besides, you can’t teach old fleas new dogs.

Nietzsche claimed that his genius was in his nostrils and I think that is a very excellent place for it to be.

I'm a Born Liar (2003)

Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me.

No critic writing about a film could say more than the film itself, although they do their best to make us think the opposite.

I'm a Born Liar (2003)

Hype is the awkward and desperate attempt to convince journalists that what you've made is worth the misery of having to review it.

I'm a Born Liar (2003)

It's easier to be faithful to a restaurant than it is to a woman.

I'm a Born Liar (2003)

Experience is what you get while looking for something else.

I'm a Born Liar (2003)

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.

Rolling Stone no. 421 (1984)

Cinéma-vérité? I prefer 'cine-mendacity'. A lie is always more interesting than the truth...Fiction may have a greater truth than everyday, obvious reality.

Fellini on Fellini (1976)

What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one... It’s this in-between that I’m calling a province, this frontier country between the tangible world and the intangible one — which is really the realm of the artist.

Art is all about craftsmanship.

I'm a Born Liar (2003)

Everyone knows that time is Death, that Death hides in clocks. Imposing another time powered by the Clock of the Imagination, however, can refuse his law. Here, freed of the Grim Reaper's scythe, we learn that pain is knowledge and all knowledge pain.

I'm a Born Liar (2003)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Federico Fellini (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.