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" 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. "

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

" 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? "

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

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" Memories are doing funny things to us. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "