Lina Wertmuller quotes:

When I was young, I ran to see Astaire and Rogers, Huston, Lubitsch - they were formative for me. I also read 'Flash Gordon' when I was 6, but if I were still reading it when I was 16, I'd have been an imbecile.

I love life. I love my friends. I love to eat. Too many things, I love. I am very much an anti-historical character. I am attracted to happy people. Happy people with very grave problems.

Even American artists are terrorized by market forces. If one can't see the films, my wings are clipped. I am no longer concerned about this, because I'm focused on making films. Perhaps one day someone who discovers sunken treasures will reexamine my 35 or 36 films - I hope it will be 40 or 50 before I die.

My first customer is myself. When I tell a story I like, I can sleep easy. I'm sorry when audiences don't like it, but I have no choice.

When I was a girl, we all wanted to have fun. That's all we thought about. It didn't occur to us to get married and have babies.

I don't think suicide is so terrible. Some rainy winter Sundays when there's a little boredom, you should always carry a gun. Not to shoot yourself, but to know exactly that you're always making a choice.

When you can use dirty words in every situation with everyone, that's a real big liberation.

Film is my big problem. I am involved too much. I love too much. I've been trying to resolve it for 35 years now, but for now, I have to keep making them.

For years, the feminists thought of me as an army sergeant. I was too macho for them.

Some feminists have this party-line attitude, and they can be very extremist. The most enlightened characters in my film are women.

if I love something I do it, and if I don't, I don't. I think that this is the most important choice that any of us can make in life, in art, in history: to do the thing you love. If you love it, it is important. If you love it then while you are doing it, you are a true expression of yourself and your time and your story. You are authentic. If you don't love it you betray not only yourself but also your history, your culture, your position in your society.

The wonderful thing about films is how they can be understood by so many different people on so many different levels.

To love is to be engaged is to work is to be interested is to create.

What is important is not that you have a defeat but how you react to it. There is always the possibility to transform a defeat into something else, something new, something strong. All the good stories, all the people we remember are the ones who do this, who make victories out of their failures. Because the victories teach nothing. The victories are not useful. They are often dangerous.