Best 51 quotes of Baz Luhrmann on MyQuotes

Advice is a form of nostalgia.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Hurt him. Hurt him and save him

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

I do find walking is fundamental to my creative process.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

In this country, particularly, actually in times that are difficult, or from corners of America where you least expect it, unbelievable pure creativity has welled up. Generally because of the cross-fertilization... a Scott Joplin tune becomes jazz, becomes blues, and becomes rock 'n' roll.

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

It's pretty hard to get mugged in Manhattan.

I understand that anything actors are doing, good or bad, is motivated by fear.

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.

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

Look, I had a passion for comic books growing up.

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

My wife is the fact-checker, I'm in the story telling business.

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.

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.

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.

Some of the greatest relationship films of all time, the two stars have hated each other, but mostly you see that chemistry.

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

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.

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.

The cold-audition process is not a science, so I ignore that.

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.

The party is a true art form in Sydney and people practise it a great deal. You can really get quite lost in it.

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

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.

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.

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.

Trust yourself that you can do it and get it

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

Western films don't do very well in India.

When I was growing up you would see big American films that really mythologised their landscape, that really showed the vastness and the drama of their country.

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.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you wanna do with your life; the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives; some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.