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Martin Scorsese Quotes

Powerful Martin Scorsese for Daily Growth

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

Been, I Think, About, Our World

My father had this mythological sense of the old New York, and he used to tell me stories about these old gangs, particularly the Forty Thieves in the Fourth Ward.

- Martin Scorsese

New, Stories, Particularly, Mythological

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

- Martin Scorsese

Wonderful, Matter, Film, Cases

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

Development, Sopranos, Emergence

If your mother cooks Italian food, why should you go to a restaurant?

- Martin Scorsese

Mother, Food, Italian Food, Italian

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

- Martin Scorsese

Time, Shooting, Really, Envision

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

- Martin Scorsese

Color, Big, Images, Depth

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

Think, Storytelling, Subject, Depth

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

New, The Most Important, Move Forward

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.

- Martin Scorsese

Doing, Need, Other, Medium

I just wanted to be an ordinary parish priest.

- Martin Scorsese

Ordinary, Priest, Wanted, Parish

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

Bad, Always, Been, Bad Mood

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

- Martin Scorsese

Think, I Think, Chinese, Terrible Thing

Young film makers should learn how to deal with the money and learn how to deal with the power structure. Because it is like a battle.

- Martin Scorsese

Learn, Young, Deal, Power Structure

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

Box, Maybe, Use, Financing

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

Roman, Part, Impressed, Specifically

I think all of us, under certain circumstances, could be capable of some very despicable acts. And that's why, over the years, in my movies I've had characters who didn't care what people thought about them. We try to be as true to them as possible and maybe see part of ourselves in there that we may not like.

- Martin Scorsese

Some, I Think, Very, Despicable

I'm sad to see celluloid go, there's no doubt. But, you know, nitrate went, by the way, in 1971. If you ever saw a nitrate print of a silent film and then saw an acetate print, you'd see a big difference, but nobody remembers anymore. The acetate print is what we have. Maybe. Now it's digital.

- Martin Scorsese

Big, Anymore, Maybe, Celluloid

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

Passionate, Craftsmen, Celluloid

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.

- Martin Scorsese

More, Gotten, Tendency, Tolerance

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

London, Fact, Charles, Dickens

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

Truth, Death, Frames, Flash

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

Change, Temporarily, Then, Sensible Person

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

Doing, Some, Cops, Policemen

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

Young, Maybe, I Think, Burst

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

Resolve, Meant, Dalai Lama, Ripped

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

Kid, Very, Around, Right Way

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

- Martin Scorsese

Love, Seeds, Studying, Sowing

I think all the great studio filmmakers are dead or no longer working. I don't put myself, my friends, and other contemporary filmmakers in their category. I just see us doing some work.

- Martin Scorsese

Some, Other, Studio, Category

I also saw the Dalai Lama a few times.

- Martin Scorsese

Times, Dalai Lama, Saw, Lama

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