94+ Federico Fellini Quotes (Dreamlike, Surreal And Visionary)

Federico Fellini was an Italian film director and screenwriter known for his distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images. He is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century. His films have inspired many directors, including Martin Scorsese, Terry Gilliam, and the Coen brothers.

Top 10 Federico Fellini Quotes

1. Life is a combination of magic and pasta.
2. A different language is a different vision of life.
3. There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.
4. The visionary is the only realist.
5. Regrets are a waste of time. They're the past crippling you in the present.
6. Never trust a woman who doesn’t like to eat. She is probably lousy in bed.
7. I never make moral judgments; I'm not qualified to do so. I am not a censor, a priest, or a politician.
8. Realism is a bad word. In a sense everything is realistic. I see no line between the imaginary and the real.
9. If there were a little more silence, if we all kept quiet...maybe we could understand something.
10. When I do things without any explanation, but just with spontaneity...I can be sure that I am right.

Federico Fellini Image Quotes

Regrets are a waste of time. They're the past crippling you in the present. — Federico Fellini

Federico Fellini Short Quotes

• There is abundant testimony that if we choose love rather than self, we gain immeasurably.
• The only place where you can be a dictator and still be loved is on the movie set
• All art is autobiographical.
• Don't tell me what I'm doing; I don't want to know.
• It is only when I am doing my work that I feel truly alive.
• Fate is written in the face.
• It's easier to be faithful to a restaurant than it is to a woman.
• Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me.
• God may not play dice but he enjoys a good round of Trivial Pursuit every now and again.
• Censorship is advertising paid by the government.

Federico Fellini Famous Quotes And Sayings

I don’t like the idea of “understanding” a film. I don’t believe that rational understanding is an essential element in the reception of any work of art. Either a film has something to say to you or it hasn’t. If you are moved by it, you don’t need it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it. — Federico Fellini

Everyone knows that time is Death, that Death hides in clocks. Imposing another time powered by the Clock of the Imagination, however, can refuse his law. Here, freed of the Grim Reaper's scythe, we learn that pain is knowledge and all knowledge pain. — Federico Fellini

Real religion should be something that liberates men. But churches don't want free men who can think for themself and find their own divinity within. When a religion becomes organized it is no longer a religious experience but only superstition and estrangement. — Federico Fellini

Regrets are a waste of time. They're the past crippling you in the present. — Federico Fellini

What's important is the way we say it. Art is all about craftsmanship. Others can interpret craftsmanship as style if they wish. Style is what unites memory or recollection, ideology, sentiment, nostalgia, presentiment, to the way we express all that. It's not what we say but how we say it that matters. — Federico Fellini

One of the greatest handicaps is to fear a mistake. You have stopped yourself. You have to move freely into the arena, not just to wait for the perfect situation, the perfect moment... If you have to make a mistake, it's better to make a mistake of action than one of inaction. If I had the opportunity again, I would take chances. — Federico Fellini

Don't forget that costumes, like dreams, are symbolic communication. Dreams teach us that a language for everything exists - for every object, every color worn, every clothing detail. Hence, costumes provide an aesthetic objectification that helps to tell the character's story. — Federico Fellini

Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second, and you can hop from one place to another. It's a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something, as in a dream. — Federico Fellini

When the most important times are occurring, we don't even recognize them or notice. We are just busy living our lives. Only looking back do we know what was a great moment in our lives. — Federico Fellini

If I'm a cruel satirist at least I'm not a hyprocrite: I never judge what other people do. Neither a politician nor a priest, I never censor what others do. Neither a philospher nor a psychiatrist, I never bother trying to analyze or resolve my fears and neuroses. — Federico Fellini

I even see the cinema itself as a woman, with its alternation of light and darkness, of appearing and disappearing images — Federico Fellini

The young watch television twenty-four hours a day, they don't read and they rarely listen. This incessant bombardment of images has developed a hypertrophied eye condition that's turning them into a race of mutants. They should pass a law for a total reeducation of the young, making children visit the Galleria Borghese on a daily basis. — Federico Fellini

Our duty as storytellers is to bring people to the station. There each person will choose his or her own train...But we must at least take them to the station...to a point of departure. — Federico Fellini

Nothing is sadder than laughter; nothing more beautiful, more magnificent, more uplifting and enriching than the terror of deep despair. — Federico Fellini

Even the most miserable life is better than a sheltered existence in an organized society where everything is calculated and perfected. — Federico Fellini

Reality! But what does this word mean? Each has his own reality. I draw upon my personal reality upon the dark side of myself, my unconscious. — Federico Fellini

Marriage is a tyranny, a mortification of man's natural instincts. Man needs a multiplicity of relationships. — Federico Fellini

I think television has betrayed the meaning of democratic speech, adding visual chaos to the confusion of voices. What role does silence have in all this noise? — Federico Fellini

There is no such thing as a good paparazzo. A good paparazzo, that's a paparazzo who has had his camera broken. In fact, they are bandits, thieves of photography. (Statement after photographs were published showing Jackie Onassis sunbathing nude.) — Federico Fellini

The beauty of life are women, no one loves them as much as me. I adore them all, the ugly, the beautiful, the cold, the sexy and especially those that are from cinema material, shadow and light. — Federico Fellini

We can all pretend to be cynical and scheming, but when we’re faced with purity and innocence, the cynical mask drops off. — Federico Fellini

According to the doctors, I'm only suffering from a light form of premature baldness. — Federico Fellini

Nietzsche claimed that his genius was in his nostrils and I think that is a very excellent place for it to be. — Federico Fellini

Hype is the awkward and desperate attempt to convince journalists that what you've made is worth the misery of having to review it. — Federico Fellini

Georgian film is a completely unique phenomenon, vivid, philosophically inspiring, very wise, childlike. There is everything that can make me cry and I ought to say that it (my crying) is not an easy thing. — Federico Fellini

Peellaert's comic strips were the literature of intelligence, imagination and romanticism. — Federico Fellini

All art is autobiographical. The pearl is the oyster's autobiography. — Federico Fellini

Going to the cinema is like returning to the womb; you sit there, still and meditative in the darkness, waiting for life to appear on the screen. — Federico Fellini

You have to live spherically - in many directions. Never lose your childish enthusiasm - and things will come your way. — Federico Fellini

Cinema is an old whore, like circus and variety, who knows how to give many kinds of pleasure. Besides, you can't teach old fleas new dogs. — Federico Fellini

You exist only in what you do. — Federico Fellini

Nothing is more honest than a dream. — Federico Fellini

You see me in my most virile moment when you see me doing what I do. When I am directing, a special energy comes upon me. ... It is only when I am doing my work that I feel truly alive. It is like having sex. — Federico Fellini

I’m just a storyteller, and the cinema happens to be my medium. I like it because it recreates life in movement, enlarges it, enhances it, distills it. For me, it’s far closer to the miraculous creation of life than, say, a painting or music or even literature. It’s not just an art form; it’s actually a new form of life, with its own rhythms, cadences, perspectives and transparencies. It’s my way of telling a story. — Federico Fellini

I am not the kind of director who sits in a chair smoking a cigar talking with a microphone to 10 assistants. I need to move. To touch. To put a painting on a wall. To arrange a set. — Federico Fellini

The greatest danger for artists is total freedom. — Federico Fellini

A good opening and a good ending make for a good film provide they come close together. — Federico Fellini

I do not need a producer. I need only a good production manager. I need only a man who will give me money. — Federico Fellini

A creator always needs excuses. — Federico Fellini

If you see with innocent eyes, everything is divine. — Federico Fellini

No matter what happens, always Keep your childhood innocence. It's the most important thing. — Federico Fellini

I did not realise that I was so loved. It can't just be for the films. I must have done something else, but I can't remember what. — Federico Fellini

All artists are equal when they are themselves. — Federico Fellini

We must get beyond passions, like a great work of art. In such miraculous harmony. We should learn to love each other so much to live outside of time... detached. — Federico Fellini

If you do what you were born to do, I think you will never grow old. — Federico Fellini

I make pictures to tell a story, to tell lies, and to amuse. — Federico Fellini

I always direct the same film. I cannot distinguish one from the other. — Federico Fellini

As a writer and director, I want to know what is behind the good manners and soft voice. Who is inside the silhouette? — Federico Fellini

Like many people, I have no religion, and I am just sitting in a small boat drifting with the tide. I live in the doubts of my duty.... I think there is dignity in this, just to go on working.... Today we stand naked, defenseless, and more alone than at any time in history. We are waiting for something, perhaps another miracle, perhaps the Martians. Who knows? — Federico Fellini

The public has lost the habit of movie-going because the cinema no longer possesses the charm, the hypnotic charisma, the authority it once commanded. The image it once held for us all - that of a dream we dreamt with our eyes open - has disappeared. — Federico Fellini

The picture is in your head, in your imagination, everything. — Federico Fellini

I think that one can have luck if one tries to create an atmosphere of spontaneity. — Federico Fellini

Through the ages, from the beginning of time, I'm certain man has covered woman's face with masks. They are, however, his masks, not hers. — Federico Fellini

In 'Roma,' I wanted to get across the idea that underneath Rome today is ancient Rome. So close. I am always conscious of that, and it thrills me. Imagine being in a traffic jam at the Coliseum! Rome is the most wonderful movie set in the world... As was the case with many of my film ideas, it was inspired by a dream. — Federico Fellini

A created thing is never invented and it is never true: it is always and ever itself. — Federico Fellini

Freedom, especially a woman's freedom, is a conquest to be made, not a gift to be received. It isn't granted. It must be taken. — Federico Fellini

The artist is the medium between his fantasies and the rest of the world. — Federico Fellini

No critic writing about a film could say more than the film itself, although they do their best to make us think the oppposite. — Federico Fellini

For people who live in the imagination, there is no lack of subjects. To seek for the exact moment at which inspiration comes is false. Imagination floods us with suggestions all the time, from all directions. — Federico Fellini

I claim the right to contradict myself. I don't want to deprive myself of the right to talk nonsense, and I ask humbly to be allowed to be wrong sometimes. — Federico Fellini

I'd like very much to make a confident picture. I would like to be as good as nature, which, with a shower, produces flowers and grass to cover the destruction. But we are surrounded by human fragmentation, by pessimism, and it is difficult to talk of other things. — Federico Fellini

As I don't consider myself exceptional, but simply a storyteller, each of my stories is really a period of my life. Deep down I feel that criticism of my work-which is the most sincere and authentic vision of myself-is unsuitable and immodest, whether it is favorable or unfavorable. — Federico Fellini

Every time I start a picture ... I feel the same fear, the same self-doubts . . . and I have only one source on which I can draw, because it comes from within me. — Federico Fellini

Our minds can shape the way a thing will be because we act according to our expectations. — Federico Fellini

Marriage, if it is to survive, must be treated as the beginning, not as the happy ending. — Federico Fellini

To people of my generation, the picture show was really another dimension - sensual, whimsical. No uniforms or collective rites, but a place where little boys like me could laugh and feel free. — Federico Fellini

My relationship with my body has changed. I used to consider it as a servant who should obey, function, give pleasure. In sickness, you realise that you are not the boss. It is the other way around. — Federico Fellini

When I start a picture, I always have a script, but I change it every day. I put in what occurs to me that day out of my imagination. You start on a voyage; you know where you will end up but not what will occur along the way. You want to be surprised. — Federico Fellini

The public has lost the habit of movie-going because the cinema no longer possesses the charm, the hypnotic charisma, the authority it once commanded. The image it once held for us all — that of a dream we dreamt with our eyes open — has disappeared. Is it still possible that one thousand people might group together in the dark and experience the dream that a single individual has directed? — Federico Fellini

I spent my life trying to cure myself of my education. — Federico Fellini

My work has always been the thing that justifies my life. — Federico Fellini

I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and the rest of it. — Federico Fellini

What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one. It's this in-between...this frontier country between the tangible world and the intangible one -- which is really the realm of the artist. — Federico Fellini

Money is everywhere but so is poetry. What we lack are the poets. — Federico Fellini

Experience is what you get while looking for something else. — Federico Fellini

Life Lessons by Federico Fellini

1. Federico Fellini believed in the power of dreaming and encouraged others to follow their own dreams and passions. He also taught the importance of self-expression and the value of exploring one's own creativity.
2. He also believed that life should be lived with a sense of joy and humor, and that we should embrace our own unique perspectives and identities.
3. Lastly, Fellini taught us to appreciate the beauty of life and to take time to enjoy the little moments that make life special.