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

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

" Well, I wouldn't say that this experience had any influence on my decision to do this film about Andy, because Andy was apolitical. Andy was never political. "

" 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. "

" And also they were absolutely brilliant in one way, you know: they knew how effective is not to punish somebody who is guilty; what Communist Party members could afford to do was mind-boggling: they could do practically anything they wanted - steal, you know, lie, whatever. "

" Holocaust films will be made and should be made as long as we can't understand what makes people so cruel to each other. "

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

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

" A modern hero is very ambiguous. I went through some very rough times in Czechoslovakia - the occupation by the Germans at the end of the war. We had people going against their tanks with brooms. Are they nuts, or are they heroes? "

" So, thanks God, our films, our first films were suddenly being appreciated by the Western media; especially France was very good, and Switzerland was very good. "

" You know what happened, you know, in 1938: France, England, you know, just sold out Czechoslovakia to Hitler. "

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

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

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

" You either have commercial pressure or ideological pressure. I prefer commercial pressure; otherwise, you can be at the mercy of one or two idiots. "

" I am absolutely against any violence. "

" I remember in 1968 when we were in Cannes, in the festival, and we were supposed to be there 10 days, and the second day the festival collapsed because the French, you know, film-makers raised the red flag in the festival and ended the festival. "

" Memories are doing funny things to us. "

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

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" So I left with Jean Claude and went to Paris, so when the Russians came to Prague, I was in Paris. "

" 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. "

" When you make a film, you realize that the audience will be powerless to stop it or flip back to refresh their memories or skip the boring parts. They are at the mercy of your storytelling. "

" The worst evil is - and that's the product of censorship - is the self-censorship, because that twists spines, that destroys my character because I have to think something else and say something else, I have to always control myself. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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