Movies are my religion and God is my patron. I'm lucky enough to be in the position where I don't make movies to pay for my pool. When I make a movie, I want it to be everything to me; like I would die for it.
If you want to make a movie, make it. Don't wait for a grant, don't wait for the perfect circumstances, just make it. Giving advice to young aspiring filmmakers at the 1994 Independent Spirit Awards
I have an idea for a Godzilla movie that I've always wanted to do. The whole idea of Godzilla's role in Tokyo, where he's always battling these other monsters, saving humanity time and again- wouldn't Godzilla become God? It would be called Living Under the Rule of Godzilla. This is what society is like when a big fucking green lizard rules your world.
I never went to film school; I went to films.
I'm never going to be shy about anything, what I write about is what I know; it's more about my version of the truth as I know it. That's part of my talent, really - putting the way people really speak into the things I write. My only obligation is to my characters. And they came from where I have been.
I will never do 'Pulp Fiction 2', but having said that, I could very well do other movies with these characters.
I guess I'll have to marry Elvis Presley to get even. On "rival" director Guy Ritchie marrying Madonna
It's an artistic calling. It's a religion. You shouldn't be doing it as just a day job, to pay for your pool or pay for your house in Barbados. You should do it when it's special, when you'd die for the movie, when the movie is your baby.
I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages. 1994
I've always thought my soundtracks do pretty good, because they're basically professional equivalents of a mix tape I'd make for you at home.
Violence is a form of cinematic entertainment.
Sure, Kill Bill's a violent movie. But it's a Tarantino movie. You don't go to see Metallica and ask the fuckers to turn the music down. On media criticisms of violence in his movies
To me, torture would be watching sports on television.
The exploitation films were made in such an artless way with these big wide shots of Sunset Boulevard or of Arcadia or downtown L.A. or wherever. In mainstream films, especially in the 1980s, the Los Angeles you saw wasn't the real one; it was a character with this back-lot sort of atmosphere. They tried to luxuriate it. In exploitation films, you see what the place really looked like, you see the bars and mom-and-pop restaurants.
I've come to a point where I like Pauline Kael's reviews of Goddard more than Goddard's films.
I hope to give you at least 15 more years of movies. I'm not going to be this old guy that keeps cranking them out. My plan is to have a theater by that time in some small town and I will be the manager - this crazy old movie guy. March 2005
When I was directing ER, I didn't want to stand out. Everyone else is wearing all that crap. I wanted to fit in. I didn't want to be the odd man out. I wanted to be inside, not on the outside. When I was directing the ER thing, the emergency room guys wore the green scrubs. I wore those for a few days. Then, I wore the blue scrubs, which were the surgeons,' for a few days. When I wore the nurse's pink scrubs, though, that's when I became a hero on the set. The nurses didn't think I was going to throw in with them. I ended the episode, the last two days, wearing the nurses' scrubs. When I walked on the set all the nurses applauded me. They were like, 'Oh my God, he's so cool!' On directing the "ER" (1994) episode "Motherhood"
When I was on "The View" (1997), Barbara Walters was asking me about the blood and stuff, and I said, 'Well, you know, that's a staple of Japanese cinema.' And then she came back,'But this is America.' And I go, 'I don't make movies for America. I make movies for planet Earth. On violence in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
Going into a videostore and going through the videos, looking at every title they have, trying to find some old spaghetti western, that's gone. On becoming famous
What if a kid goes to school after seeing Kill Bill and starts slicing up other kids? You know, I'll take that chance! Violent films don't turn children into violent people. They may turn them into violent filmmakers but that's another matter altogether. On media criticisms of violence in his movies
It's like surf music, I've always like loved that but, for me, I don't know what surf music has to do with surf boards. To me, it just sounds like rock and roll, even Morricone music. It sounds like rock and roll Spaghetti Western music, so that's how I kind of laid it in. On using surfing music, when hating the surfing culture
If I've made it a little easier for artists to work in violence, great! I've accomplished something.
I am a genre lover – everything from Spaghetti Western to Samurai movie.
I write movies about mavericks, about people who break rules, and I don't like movies about people who are pulverised for being mavericks.
