Frank Capra > Quotes

“I made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries.”
― Frank Capra

“A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.”
― Frank Capra

“I made some mistakes in drama. I thought the drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries.”
― Frank Capra

“Friend, you are a divine mingle-mangle of guts and stardust. So hang in there! If doors opened for me, they can open for anyone.”
― Frank Capra

“Film is one if three universal languages, the other two: mathematics and music.”
― Frank Capra

“Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream, it takes over as the number one hormone; it bosses the enzymes; directs the pineal gland; plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to film is more film.”
― Frank Capra

“Someone should keep reminding Mr. Average Man that he was born free, divine, strong; uncrushable by fate, society, or hell itself; and that he is a child of God, equal heir to all the bounties of God; and that goodness is riches, kindness is power, and freedom is glory. Above all, every man is born with an inner capacity to take him as far as his imagination can dream or envision-providing he is free to dream and envision.”
― Frank Capra, The Name Above The Title

“The world was in a confused turmoil-wars, H-bombs, confrontations, fear, hate, hate. And Hollywood was feeding the confusion with a steady diet of sex, violence, and lewdness. What wisdom needed, to catch up with our runaway technology, was time. And time might be bought not with violence, but with compassion-that divine unguent that lubricates and soothes our abrasive human hates. Compassion might just possibly slow down the ticking till we could defuse the world with reason.
And we had an outside chance of buying a little precious extra time by filming the life of Schnozzola, the great compassionate clown. A chance that got lost among stars and their satellites. Pity Pity.
Now what would I do? Certainly the world didn't need more films about sex, violence, and lewdness. Judging by contemporary Hollywood films, the United States was made up of sexpots, homosexuals, lesbians, Marquis de Sades, junkies too! too! beautiful people, country-club liberals, draft-card burners, and theatrical and religious figures bleeding make-believe blood for cause and camera. "Shock films," they called them; "skin flicks" that dealt not with the humorous, honest, robust, Rabelaisian earthiness that nurtures life, but with the cologned, pretentious, effete, adulterated crud that pollutes life.”
― Frank Capra, The Name Above The Title

“In these days of wars and rumors of wars, haven't you ever dreamed of a place where there was peace and security, where living was not a struggle but a lasting delight?”
― Frank Capra

“The winds of change blew through the dream factories of make-believe, tore at its crinoline tatters ... The hedonists, the homosexuals, the hemophiliac bleeding hearts, the God-haters, the quick-buck artists who substituted shock for talent, all cried: "Shake 'em! Rattle 'em! God is dead. Long live pleasure! Nudity? Yea! Wife-swapping? Yea! Liberate the world from prudery. Emancipate our films from morality!" ... Kill for thrill—shock! Shock! To hell with the good in man, Dredge up his evil—shock! Shock!

"Practically all the Hollywood film-making of today is stooping to cheap salacious pornography in a crazy bastardization of a great art to compete for the 'patronage' of deviates and masturbators.”
― Frank Capra, The Name Above The Title

“I want to put into your heads that the world is not all evil. Yes, we do have nightmares, but we also have dreams. We do have villainy, but we also have great compassion among ourselves. That’s all I’m here for, really, to try to tell you that there’s good in the world. And that it’s wonderful.”
― Frank Capra

“...I am an old man, and most people hate me. But I don't like them either...”
― Frank Capra, "It's a Wonderful Life" the screenplay

“It was a magic carpet - woven with the coils and ringlets of a wondrous peel of limber plastic, whose filaments carried the genetic code of all the arts of man, and from which the abracadabra of science conjured up the hopes, the fears, the dreams of man - the magic carpet of FILM!”
― Frank Capra

“Çocuklar "Özgür İnsanların Ülkesi"ni tarih kitablarında okumakla kalınca bu vatanın ne anlama geldiğini unutuyor. Yetişkinler zaten çoktan unutmuş. Özgürlük, kitab sayfalarında bıraklmayacak kadar değerlidir. İnsanlar her gün on bakıpşöyle demeliler "Konuşmakta ve düşünmekte özgürüm." Atalarım bunu yapamadı. Ben yapa bilirim. Çocuklarım da yapacak. Çocuklar bunu hatırlayarak büyümeliler.”
― Frank Capra

“Youth is wasted on the wrong people.”
― Frank Capra, "It's a Wonderful Life" the screenplay