Baz Luhrmann Quotes

A life lived in fear is a life half lived.

The ugly duckling is a misunderstood universal myth. It's not about turning into a blonde Barbie doll or becoming what you dream of being; it's about self-revelation, becoming who you are.

Western films don't do very well in India.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself

Ultimately, you have to pursue your own path, not someone's idea of the right path. You need to stay on your path.

Sydney is rather like an arrogant lover. When it rains it can deny you its love and you can find it hard to relate to. It's not a place that's built to be rainy or cold. But when the sun comes out, it bats its eyelids, it's glamorous, beautiful, attractive, smart, and it's very hard to get away from its magnetic pull.

If Paris is a city of lights, Sydney is the city of fireworks.

The race is long but in the end it is only with YOURSELF.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it.

I really believe musical form will go on. There's got to be a way of making musical form in cinema live again.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth.

All good, clean stories are melodrama, it's just the set of devices that determines how you show or hide it.

Trust yourself that you can do it and get it

Opera was the cinema of its time, so to bring back that popular appeal, you just need to unleash its visceral immediacy and excitement. Most productions don't manage that - but when an opera does do it, you never forget it.

I've always loved the old epics that tell a simple emotional story, whether it's the tumultuous relationship between Rhett and Scarlett or Lawrence of Arabia's passion to get lost in a faraway place.

You really think that on my films people tell me what to do? I don't think so. On my films I decide.

I wouldn't take a directing job if I didn't think it was enriching life.

In terms of the mechanics of story, myth is an intriguing one because we didn't make myth up; myth is an imprinture of the human condition.

I feel a kinship with anyone who feels that their road, their life or who they really are is not good enough. I really relate to that.

Don't worry about the future.

Sydney in general is eclectic. You can be on that brilliant blue ocean walk in the morning and then within 20 minutes you can be in a completely vast suburban sprawl or an Italian or Asian suburb, and it's that mix of people, it's that melting pot of people that give it its vital personality.

The food in Sydney is an Asian Pacific cuisine. It's eclectic but above all it's fresh, inventive and creative and that's what I love about it.

I grew up around jazz. I love jazz.

I always have a point of view. It may not be right, but it's my own.

When you're in theater or the circus or film - to me it's all one - affairs happen. People fall in love.

Why live life from dream to dream, and dread the day when dreaming ends.

There's a whole system in Hollywood where the director never speaks to the studio, but I like to engage them in a discussion. I listen.

I never see things I make in the same way that the audience does. You can never do that.

I feel funny about owning art. I don't really want to say: "Wow, come and see my Monet - it's in a dark room at the bottom of my cellar."

One of the great things about Sydney is that it has a great acceptance of everyone and everything. It's an incredibly tolerant city, a city with a huge multicultural basis.

My father made sure that I had lots of levels of education – from ballroom-dancing to painting, commando training, theatre and magic.

At a very young age I was allowed to go into the cinema and watch adult films.

Australia, to the rest of the world, is just far away, and Australia in the Thirties was the faraway of the faraway.

Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's.

I mean, '8 ½' to me is such a great dissertation on the whole, you know, act of filmmaking and creativity.

Hurt him. Hurt him and save him

I don't have fights with actors. In absolute honesty, I've never fought with any actor ever.

In the '60s not everybody was wearing flowers in their hair and flowing caftans.

So, what is creative freedom? We can make what we want, how we want. The only constraint is: not for any budget.

I do find walking is fundamental to my creative process.

I feel like a member of any group comprised of outsiders.

Fitzgerald coined the phrase the 'Jazz Age,' and now we're living in the Hip-Hop Age.

I mean the future has become old fashioned.

It's pretty hard to get mugged in Manhattan.

In the '80s, everyone wanted to be in opera. It was groovy.

Having grown up far, far away in a small country town in Australia, I was only slightly aware of hip-hop.

One of my great all-time loves in cinema, and I've seen it three times, is Bondarchuk's 'War and Peace.' Not a lot of people may have seen that film. It was made during the Soviet era.

In 1977, hip-hop literally wasn't outside the boroughs. But I was profoundly aware of the city through films like Saturday Night Fever, The French Connection, and Network. I had a friend who visited New York, and I asked him what it was like. He said, "Oh, it's great. Just wear a coat and don't look anyone in the eye."

I am always worried when someone says, 'This is perfect.'

To be honest, there is a tourists' trail; my family had a farm and a gas station, and you can go and see my birthplace, though where I lived is actually under a freeway now.