110+ Martin Scorsese Quotes On Cinema, Marvel And Getting Old

Martin Scorsese is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and film historian. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential filmmakers in cinematic history. He is best known for his crime films, including Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, The Departed, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Martin Scorsese on cinema, marvel, getting old.

Top 10 Martin Scorsese Quotes

1. There's no such thing as simple. Simple is hard.
2. You don't make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit and you know it.
3. As a child I had terrible asthma.
4. Now more than ever we need to talk to each other, to listen to each other and understand how we see the world, and cinema is the best medium for doing this.
5. I love movies - it's my whole life, and that's it.
6. Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out.
7. I loved the idea of seeing the world through a boy's eyes.
8. I always tell the younger filmmakers and students: Do it like the painters used to...Study they old masters. Enrich your palette. Expand the canvas. There's always so much more to learn.
9. And as I've gotten older, I've had more of a tendency to look for people who live by kindness, tolerance, compassion, a gentler way of looking at things.
10. I also saw the Dalai Lama a few times.

Martin Scorsese Image Quotes

As a child I had terrible asthma. — Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese Short Quotes

• The most important thing is the script.
• People have to start talking to know more about other cultures and to understand each other.
• If your mother cooks Italian food, why should you go to a restaurant?
• I just wanted to be an ordinary parish priest.
• The vampire thing always works for some reason. Always works.
• I grew up in the Lower East Side, an Italian American - more Sicilian, actually.
• My films really have to be a part of a whole body of work that says something to me.
• The young people today are the 21st century.
• The best I can do is to make a film every two years.
• You've got to understand when a collaborator isn't satisfied anymore.

Martin Scorsese Quotes About World

Violence is not the answer, it doesn’t work any more. We are at the end of the worst century in which the greatest atrocities in the history of the world have occurred... The nature of human beings must change. We must cultivate love and compassion. — Martin Scorsese

There must be people who remember World War II and the Holocaust who can help us get out of this rut. — Martin Scorsese

That subject matter has never left me...The more you're in the material world, the more there is a tendency for a search for serenity and a need to not be distracted by physical elements that are around you. — Martin Scorsese

It seems to me that any sensible person must see that violence does not change the world and if it does, then only temporarily. — Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese Famous Quotes And Sayings

As a child I had terrible asthma. — Martin Scorsese

The cinema began with a passionate, physical relationship between celluloid and the artists and craftsmen and technicians who handled it, manipulated it, and came to know it the way a lover comes to know every inch of the body of the beloved. No matter where the cinema goes, we cannot afford to lose sight of its beginnings. — Martin Scorsese

What the Dalai Lama had to resolve was whether to stay in Tibet or leave. He wanted to stay, but staying would have meant the total destruction of Tibet, because he would have died and that would have ripped the heart out of his people. — Martin Scorsese

In truly great films - the ones that people need to make, the ones that start speaking through them, the ones that keep moving into territory that is more and more unfathomable and uncomfortable - nothing's ever simple or neatly resolved. You're left with a mystery. — Martin Scorsese

I'm obsessed with New York. I just find it so remarkable. You really treasure this city when you go to different countries and you see that there is no mix. When you get back to the city, it's such an exciting place. — Martin Scorsese

Always get to the set or the location early, so that you can be all alone and draw your inspiration for the blocking and the setups in private and quiet. — Martin Scorsese

I look for a thematic idea running through my movies and I see that it's the outsider struggling for recognition. I realize that all my life I've been an outsider, and above all, being lonely but never realizing it. — Martin Scorsese

Howard Hughes was this visionary who was obsessed with speed and flying like a god... I loved his idea of what filmmaking was. — Martin Scorsese

DAYS THAT I'LL REMEMBER is a lovingly assembled and beautifully written collection of conversations, observations, and memories of music, friendship, and days gone by. It's good to be back again with John Lennon, his beloved Yoko Ono, and his trusted chronicler and friend Jonathan Cott. — Martin Scorsese

I love studying Ancient History and seeing how empires rise and fall, sowing the seeds of their own destruction. — Martin Scorsese

The creation of the island, or the impression of the island, as it changes in the mind of the character also came in to play... there was another very important collaborator, Rob Legato, on special visual effects. And then ultimately there's Thelma Schoonmaker, who keeps me focused during the editing of the picture. — Martin Scorsese

I've seen many, many movies over the years, and there are only a few that suddenly inspire you so much that you want to continue to make films. — Martin Scorsese

The term 'giant' is used too often to describe artists. But in the case of Akira Kurosawa, we have one of the rare instances where the term fits. — Martin Scorsese

It did remind me of something out of Greek mythology - the richest king who gets everything he wants, but ultimately his family has a curse on it from the Gods. — Martin Scorsese

I just - I kind of see it that way. I find the higher angles down. I do - look, you can go back to the staircase shots in "Third Man" or the staircase in "La Dolce Vita." So I just find that visual construction in a frame. — Martin Scorsese

I'd like to do a number of films. Westerns. Genre pieces. Maybe another film about Italian Americans where they're not gangsters, just to prove that not all Italians are gangsters. — Martin Scorsese

I always say that I've been in a bad mood for maybe 35 years now. I try to lighten it up, but that's what comes out when you get me on camera. — Martin Scorsese

I think when you're young and have that first burst of energy and make five or six pictures in a row that tell the stories of all the things in life you want to say... well, maybe those are the films that should have won me the Oscar. — Martin Scorsese

I'm in a different chapter of my life. As time goes by and I grow older, I find that I need to just be quiet and think. There have been periods when I've locked myself away for days, but now it's different - I'm married and we have a daughter who is in my office the whole time. — Martin Scorsese

[Kubrick] was unique in the sense that with each new film he redefined the medium and its possibilities. But he was more than just a technical innovator. Like all visionaries, he spoke the truth. And no matter how comfortable we think we are with the truth, it always comes as a profound shock when we're forced to meet it face-to-face. — Martin Scorsese

I don't agree with everything he did in his life, but we're dealing with this Howard Hughes, at this point. And also ultimately the flaw in Howard Hughes, the curse so to speak. — Martin Scorsese

I was saying as a joke the other day that I love film editing, I know how to cut a picture, I think I know how to shoot it, but I don't know how to light it. And I realize it's because I didn't grow up with light. I grew up in tenements. — Martin Scorsese

As a kid I watched the Academy Awards on television and always wanted one - or several - like one of my favorite directions, John Ford. He won six. On the other hand, Orson Welles, who's on the top of my list, didn't win any. Alfred Hitchcock didn't win any. Howard Hawks didn't win any. — Martin Scorsese

Working with HBO was an opportunity to experience creative freedom and 'long-form development' that filmmakers didn't have a chance to do before the emergence of shows like 'The Sopranos.' — Martin Scorsese

Our world is so glutted with useless information, images, useless images, sounds, all this sort of thing. It's a cacophony, it's like a madness I think that's been happening in the past twenty-five years. And I think anything that can help a person sit in a room alone and not worry about it is good. — Martin Scorsese

I tried for about two semesters in a preparatory seminary. But I was about 15 and didn't fully understand what a vocation means. — Martin Scorsese

Every year or so, I try to do something; it keeps me refreshed as to what's going on in front of the lens, and I understand what the actor is going through. — Martin Scorsese

When I was growing up, I don't remember being told that America was created so that everyone could get rich. I remember being told it was about opportunity and the pursuit of happiness. Not happiness itself, but the pursuit. — Martin Scorsese

Mean Streets dealt with the American Dream, according to which everybody thinks they can get rich quick, and if they can't do it by legal means then they'll do it by illegal ones. — Martin Scorsese

All my life, I never really felt comfortable anywhere in New York, except maybe in an apartment somewhere. — Martin Scorsese

I know that I come from mid-20th century America, urban, specifically downtown New York, specifically an Italian-American area, Roman Catholic - that's who I am. And a part of what I know is there's a decency to people who tried to make a living in the kind of world that was around us and also the Skid Row area of the Bowery; it impressed me. — Martin Scorsese

I don't know how else to tell the story except to utilise that vocabulary: the rain, the darkness, the mansions, the framing, etc, the lighting and that sort of thing. — Martin Scorsese

I know there were many good policemen who died doing their duty. Some of the cops were even friends of ours. But a cop can go both ways. — Martin Scorsese

I certainly wasn't able to get it when I was a kid growing up on the Lower East Side; it was very hard at that time for me to balance what I really believed was the right way to live with the violence I saw all around me - I saw too much of it among the people I knew. — Martin Scorsese

There was always a part of me that wanted to be an old-time director. But I couldn't do that. I'm not a pro. — Martin Scorsese

One of the things is that the good intentions of Prohibition, from reading over the years and from becoming obsessed with the research of gangs in New York City, seems to have allowed crime figures at the time, like Luciano, Capone, Torrio and Rothstein, to organize to become more powerful, which pulled all the way through until the '70s. — Martin Scorsese

Rock & roll seemed to just come to us, on the radio and in the record stores. It became our music. . . But then we uncovered another, deeper level, the history behind rock and R&B, the music behind our music. All roads led to the source, which was the blues. — Martin Scorsese

Any film, or to me any creative endeavour, no matter who you're working with, is, in many cases, a wonderful experience. — Martin Scorsese

The problem with anger is that it's so consuming. You've got to take it easy on yourself at a certain point. — Martin Scorsese

You gotta understand, when moving images first started, people wanted sound, color, big screen and depth. — Martin Scorsese

All I can do is try to do the best work I can. I need to work, I like to work... although I complain about it, but I do like it - and I just need to make the best film I can. — Martin Scorsese

The Five Points was the toughest street corner in the world. That's how it was known. In fact, Charles Dickens visited it in the 1850s and he said it was worse than anything he'd seen in the East End of London. — Martin Scorsese

I remember the Korean War very well. And I remember the soldiers who were POWs who supposedly were "brainwashed," quote, unquote, who gave in, so to speak. And when they came back, they were treated like pariahs and traitors. — Martin Scorsese

I don't think there's a subject matter that can't absorb 3-D; that can't tolerate the addition of depth as a storytelling technique. — Martin Scorsese

I think if you think of yourself as religious and if you're given a gift, some may not think it's that great a gift - some critics. But others might, you know. So you say, look - whether it's good, bad or indifferent, this is what I do. — Martin Scorsese

Vertigo is probably my favourite Hitchcock film and probably one of my favourite films of all time. It's a film that I'm obsessed with. I saw it on its first release in vista vision, projected in vista-vision, at the Capitol Theatre in New York. That moment when the nun comes up in the end... it's just an extraordinary shot. — Martin Scorsese

Most people have stereo vision, so why belittle that very, very important element of our existence? — Martin Scorsese

I don't like being in houses alone. — Martin Scorsese

I'm re-energized by being around people who mean a lot to me. — Martin Scorsese

On every film you suffer, but on some you really suffer. — Martin Scorsese

Popular music formed the soundtrack of my life. — Martin Scorsese

You don't make pictures for Oscars. — Martin Scorsese

A panoramic vision of Bob Dylan, his music, his shifting place in American culture, from multiple angles. In fact, reading Sean Wilentz's Bob Dylan in America is as thrilling and surprising as listening to a great Dylan song. — Martin Scorsese

Zombies, what are you going to do with them? Just keep chopping them up, shooting at them, shooting at them. — Martin Scorsese

Actually, I was rock climbing on this film at 7 in the morning. It was quite unique! But in any event, the colour of the leaves disturbed me so we had to work on that. On the other hand, I didn't want to drench it in a kind of depressing tone. — Martin Scorsese

I mean, music totally comes from your soul. — Martin Scorsese

I can't really envision a time when I'm not shooting something. — Martin Scorsese

I think there's only one or two films where I've had all the financial support I needed. All the rest, I wish I'd had the money to shoot another ten days. — Martin Scorsese

Food tells you everything about the way people live and who they are. — Martin Scorsese

If it's a modern-day story dealing with certain ethnic groups, I think I could open up certain scenes for improvisation, while staying within the structure of the script. — Martin Scorsese

It’s also true that I might have never made Taxi Driver [1976] were it not for the success of Alice [Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, 1974]. The question of commercialism is a source of worry. Must one make a choice, must it be a matter of either setting your sights on winning an Academy Award and becoming a millionaire, or making only the movies you want to make and starving to death? — Martin Scorsese

Eradicating a religion of kindness is, I think, a terrible thing for the Chinese to attempt. — Martin Scorsese

I’m not interested in a realistic look, not at all, not ever. Every film should look the way I feel. — Martin Scorsese

I make different films now. — Martin Scorsese

I don't really see many people... don't really go anywhere either. — Martin Scorsese

Could you double-check the envelope? — Martin Scorsese

There are times when you have to face your enemies, sit down and deal with it. — Martin Scorsese

Well the thing is that the New York of 1846 to 1862 was very different from downtown New York now. Really nothing from that period still exists in New York. — Martin Scorsese

I'm going to be 60, and I'm almost used to myself. — Martin Scorsese

It's hard to let new stuff in. And whether that admits a weakness, I don't know. — Martin Scorsese

Well, I think in my own work the subject matter usually deals with characters I know, aspects of myself, friends of mine - that sort of thing. — Martin Scorsese

During Prohibition, Atlantic City created the idea of the speakeasy, which turned into nightclubs and that extraordinary political complexity and corruption coming out of New Jersey at the time. The long hand that they had-and maybe still do-even had to do with presidential elections. — Martin Scorsese

I go through periods, usually when I'm editing and shooting, of seeing only old films. — Martin Scorsese

You've got to love something enough to kill it. — Martin Scorsese

Vic Armstrong is, of course, a legend — Martin Scorsese

It is not the most brilliant that excel in film, but the most patient! — Martin Scorsese

You never know how much time you have left. — Martin Scorsese

I wouldn't presume to be God's point of view. — Martin Scorsese

We cannot burn Mick Jagger. We want the effect, but we can't burn him. — Martin Scorsese

The most important thing is, how can I move forward towards something that I can't articulate, that is new in storytelling with moving images and sound? — Martin Scorsese

I don't think there is any difference between fantasy and reality in the way these should be approached in a film. Of course if you live that way you are clinically insane. — Martin Scorsese

People say you should do it this way, someone else suggests that, yes, there's financing, but maybe you should use this actor. And there are the threats, at the end - if you don't do it this way, you'll lose your box office; if you don't do it that way, you'll never get financed again... 35, 40 years of this, you get beat up. — Martin Scorsese

I always wanted to make a film that had this sort of Chinese-box effect, in which you keep opening it up and opening it up, and finally at the end you're at the beginning. — Martin Scorsese

Film in the 20th century, it's the American art form, like jazz. — Martin Scorsese

There is something particularly unique about the films of Hong Sang-soo...it's got to do with his masterful sense of storytelling... as the critic Manny Farber once said of Hitchcock's ROPE Hong Sang-soo's pictures unpeel like an orange. — Martin Scorsese

I'm trying to find out what the hell we - who we are. — Martin Scorsese

Death comes in a flash, and that's the truth of it, the person's gone in less than 24 frames of film. — Martin Scorsese

Life Lessons by Martin Scorsese

1. Martin Scorsese teaches that hard work and dedication are essential for success. He has worked tirelessly to create some of the most iconic films of our time and has inspired countless filmmakers to follow their dreams.
2. He also emphasizes the importance of collaboration and encourages filmmakers to work together to create something special. He has surrounded himself with talented actors, writers, and producers to create some of the most memorable films in history.
3. Finally, Martin Scorsese teaches us to never give up and to keep striving for greatness. He has faced numerous obstacles throughout his career, but his passion and determination have kept him going and have allowed him to create some of the most beloved films of all time.