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

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

" I don't mind getting involved in a risky project as long as I don't have to stay married to it if the script turns out lousy. "

" 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. "

" You know, 20 years... the films of television when it started, the literature, radio in communist countries, they're clean as a whistle; there was no violence, no sex, no drugs, nothing. "

" 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 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. "

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

" People must not think that all bad in man which is unleashed, the moment you impose censorship disappears from man. "

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

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

" 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? "

" 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. "

" 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 worked with Jack Nitzsche for 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' and we'd booked a symphony orchestra. He dismissed them and came with a little man who poured water into glasses of different sizes to make a glass harmonica. And most of the music for the film was that - with some Indian flutes and some drums. "

" First of all, whoever didn't want to be a member of this association or the other association, was branded, you know, like a dangerous individualist, you know, infected by the Western decadence, you know. So everybody joined. "

" I am absolutely against any violence. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" Memories are doing funny things to us. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "