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" Communists love to make films about composers because composers compose music and don't talk subversive things. "

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" When I entered the film school at the Prague Academy in the '50s, it was the hardest time in the Communist countries. The ideological control of the society was almost absolute. "

" Definitely, it would be foolish to try and make my Czech films here in America, as foolish as it is when some Czech filmmakers try to make movies of America in Czechoslovakia. "

" The way one perceives a book and a film are totally different. You read a book in the privacy of your room. You are the boss; you set the pace and rhythm of your reading. In the movie house, you can't do that. "

" I am absolutely against any violence. "

" I think if I tried very hard, I could do a novel or a play, a poem. I could possibly paint a picture, but I know I can't write music. And still, it is the most accessible of all arts, as you know when you hear a tune. "

" First of all, to defend my work, I had to believe that I am doing a totally silly, stupid, innocent comedy. "

" Milan Kundera was my literature professor. He's a Francophile, so he made us read French novels like 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses,' which I made a version of many years later as 'Valmont.' "

" I think everybody dreamt somehow to make a film in Hollywood, you know. "

" Humor was not important only for me, humor was important for this nation for centuries, to survive, you know. "

" If it weren't for 'Cuckoo's Nest,' it would be very difficult for me. It gave me a cushion to live at my artistic pace and not fear I wouldn't have money to live on. "

" When I came for the first time to the United States, visiting, I was absolutely fascinated by New York. "

" Because if you lived, as I did, several years under Nazi totalitarianism, and then 20 years in communist totalitarianism, you would certainly realize how precious freedom is, and how easy it is to lose your freedom. "

" Technically, you can learn everything on the set as an assistant director, and rather quickly. "

" Memories are doing funny things to us. "

" Mediocrity never goes away - but neither, I hope, do those who are willing to challenge it. "

" Ever since I was a child, I was fascinated by show business, the theater. "

" I get out of the taxi and it's probably the only city which in reality looks better than on the postcards, New York. "

" Because I just loved to spend two years of my life in the company of Andy Kaufman and other characters. "

" And everything is controlled and everybody is a member of some committee, because then their watchdogs placed in the committees can control everything, what this person says or how this person think(s), you know. "

" It's not a lighthearted decision to change your language, your country, your citizenship, and come to a world where you don't know anybody, to leave a place where you've had opportunities to build friendships from childhood. That's quite a big decision to make. "

" I don't think I was ever as fascinated or have had so much respect for anybody like James Cagney. "

" Now, after the communist take-over in 1948, the amount of feature films produced dwindled to three a year, while the school was, you know, every year another three, four, five students. "

" We have funny ideas about how people in mental institutions act. We think of drooling and people going booga-booga and climbing the wall. These are exceptional cases. "

" Well, listen, you know, the Czech saying is, you know, when you are drowning you are grabbing even a little twig. That's what all Czechs were doing, grabbing for... with the hope for this little twig. "

" Individuals fighting or rebelling against the status quo, the establishment, is good for drama. "

" I tell you, in my opinion, the cornerstone of democracy is free press - that's the cornerstone. "

" I was born in a small town. My parents, my father was a teacher. My mother was a housewife. "

" You think you can do anything, and then you slowly learn how wrong you are. "

" I can say, with a little arrogance, that I could be an actor, a cameraman, a writer, but composers are the most mysterious people. "

" In Czechoslovakia, we consider Kafka a very funny man. A humorist. "