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

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

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

" 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.' "

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

" 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. "

" 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? "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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