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The things you get fired for when you’re young are the same things that you get lifetime achievement awards for when you’re old.

Francis Ford Coppola

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Francis Ford Coppola
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: April 7
Actor
Composer
Executive Producer
Film Director
Film Editor
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Winegrower
Writer
Detroit
Michigan
Awards
Achievement
Lifetime
Young
Things
Fired

More quotes by Francis Ford Coppola

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I had a heartbreaking experience when I was 9. I always wanted to be a guard. The most wonderful girl in the world was a guard. When I got polio and then went back to school, they made me a guard. A teacher took away my guard button.
Francis Ford Coppola
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When I was sixteen or seventeen, I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a playwright. But everything I wrote, I thought, was weak. And I can remember falling asleep in tears because I had no talent the way I wanted to have.
Francis Ford Coppola
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I landed a job with Roger Corman. The job was to write the English dialogue for a Russian science fiction picture. I didn't speak any Russian. He didn't care whether I could understand what they were saying he wanted me to make up dialogue.
Francis Ford Coppola
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I live near San Francisco in the most beautiful spot on earth and enjoy myself in many ways. Yes, I love to work, which for now is to think and read and write, so it's all a dream come true.
Francis Ford Coppola
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People feel the worst film I made was 'Jack.' But to this day, when I get checks from old movies I've made, 'Jack' is one of the biggest ones. No one knows that. If people hate the movie, they hate the movie. I just wanted to work with Robin Williams.
Francis Ford Coppola
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They needed someone to write a script of The Great Gatsby very quickly for the movie they were making. I took this job so I'd be sure to have some dough to support my family.
Francis Ford Coppola
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If you're not allowed to experiment anymore for fear of being considered self-indulgent or pretentious or what have you, then everyone's going to just stick to the rules - there's not going to be any additional ideas.
Francis Ford Coppola
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I gladly, I voluntarily gave up the kind of commercial film career I had going as soon as I had enough money to finance my own films. I didn't make that money necessarily from the film business, but I eventually made a lot of money and that's what I do. Of course, I consider myself unbelievably fortunate, and I'm pretty content with my life.
Francis Ford Coppola
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You have to really be courageous about your instincts and your ideas. Otherwise you'll just knuckle under, and things that might have been memorable will be lost.
Francis Ford Coppola
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If the movie works, nobody notices the mistakes... If the movie doesn't work, the only thing people notice are mistakes.
Francis Ford Coppola
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My film isn't about Vietnam. It is Vietnam. It's what it was really like. It was crazy. And the way we made it was very much like the way the Americans were in Vietnam. We were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment and little by little we went insane.
Francis Ford Coppola
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I have much to learn from my daughter Sofia. Her minimalism exposes my limitations: I'm too instinctive and operatic, I put too much heart into my work, I get lost sometimes in bizarre things - it's my Italian heritage.
Francis Ford Coppola
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Work on nothing less than epic scale
Francis Ford Coppola
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I realized I probably wouldn't make another film that cuts through commercial and creative things like 'Godfather' or 'Apocalypse.'
Francis Ford Coppola
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My family were symphonic musicians and in the opera. Also, it was my era, the love of radio. We used to listen to the radio at night, close our eyes and see movies far more beautiful than you can photograph.
Francis Ford Coppola
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I think it's better to be overly ambitious and fail than to be underambitious and succeed in a mundane way. I have been very fortunate. I failed upward in my life!
Francis Ford Coppola
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Music is a big factor in helping the illusion of the film come to life. The same way music brings back different periods of our lives.
Francis Ford Coppola
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Always make your work be personal. And, you never have to lie... There is something we know that's connected with beauty and truth. There is something ancient. We know that art is about beauty, and therefore it has to be about truth.
Francis Ford Coppola
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The only TV I would be interested in exploring would be live television. There's no substitute for a team of artists performing at their peak live when failure is possible. It's a high-wire act. That excites me.
Francis Ford Coppola
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Wine is so much more than a beverage. It's a romance, a story, a drama-all of those things that are basically putting on a show.
Francis Ford Coppola