Quotes by John Cassavetes

“Ricardo Montalban is to improvisational acting what Mount Rushmore is to animation.”

“The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to. As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all we must dare to fail. You must be willing to risk everything to really express it all.”

“No matter how old you get, if you can keep the desire to be creative, youre keeping the man-child alive.”

“Im not good at comparing and contrasting, ... I take whats in front of me for what it is, although I guess theres something about Pauls realistic writing that is like Cassavetes.”

“One question,”

“One question. How did you know I was here?”

Film is, to me, just unimportant. But people are very important.

I’ve never seen an exploding helicopter. I’ve never seen anybody go and blow somebody’s head off. So why should I make films about them? But I have seen people destroy themselves in the smallest way, I’ve seen people withdraw, I’ve seen people hide behind political ideas, behind dope, behind the sexual revolution, behind fascism, behind hypocrisy, and I’ve myself done all these things. So I can understand them. What we are saying is so gentle. It’s gentleness. We have problems, terrible problems, but our problems are human problems.

I’m very worried about the depiction of women on the screen. It’s gotten worse than ever and it’s related to their being either high- or low-class concubines, and the only question is when or where they will go to bed, with whom, and how many. There’s nothing to do with the dreams of women, or of woman as the dream, nothing to do with the quirky part of her, the wonder of her.

No matter how old you get if you can keep the desire to be creative youre keeping the man-child alive.

You can defeat fear through humor, through pain, through honesty, bravery, intuition, and through love in the truest sense.