Baz Luhrmann quotes:

I often think to myself, at the end of an interesting life it's maybe not such a bad thing to spend your last days with your friends sitting by the blue, blue ocean reliving the story of your life while sitting in the dangerous sun.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Historically, epics are set in Africa or Asia or the Wild West, but if you make an epic today it's hard to disassociate from the contemporary realities of those places.

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

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

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

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.

I've tried to make 'Strictly Ballroom' impossible to date. It does feel a bit '80s but I consciously made sure there was no technology in the movie that could date it.

If you wanted to show a mirror to people that says, 'You've been drunk on money,' they're not going to want to see it. But if you reflected that mirror on another time they'd be willing to. People will need an explanation of where we are and where we've been, and 'The Great Gatsby' can provide that explanation.

Western films don't do very well in India.

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.'

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

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.

I mean the future has become old fashioned.

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

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

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.

A life lived in fear is a life half lived.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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 think dance in any culture, in any form, is a true leveler.

Fitzgerald was a modernist.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Trust yourself that you can do it and get it

I grew up around jazz. I love jazz.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth.

Don't worry about the future.

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

It's pretty hard to get mugged in Manhattan.

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

Advice is a form of nostalgia.

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

Accept certain inalienable truths.

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

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.

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

Hurt him. Hurt him and save him

Everything I make starts very personally.

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

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

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

I do find walking is fundamental to my creative process.