Samuel Fuller Quotations

I researched every milieu. If I were to do a movie tomorrow about a fashion designer, say, I would have to spend some time to find out what language they spoke. Because I would never be satisfied with my dialogue, I want something that gives you the color of that character right away.

When you're in the battlefield, survival is all there is. Death is the only great emotion.

I'm trying to be a voice of reason. I'm not trying to stop them from developing.

We'll build a democracy here, even if it's with Nazi bricks.

Surviving is the only glory in war

There's a difference between a Nazi and a German.

Heroes? Don't believe in them.

You know how you smoke out a sniper? You send a guy out in the open, and you see if he gets shot. They thought that one up at West Point

When I was making these damned pictures, I never knew about film noir. If you had asked me about it then, I probably would have pointed to something like Bill Wellman's The Ox Bow Incident, the best Western I ever saw and very much in the style of film noir I don't care if it's a mystery story, a Western, or the story of Julius Caesar. To me it's the emotion, the lies, the double-cross that defines what kind of drama it is.

When you're in the battlefield, survival is all there is.

I hate violence. That has never prevented me from using it in my films.

We have too many intellectuals who are afraid to use the pistol of common sense

Film is a battleground.

I don't care if it's a mystery story, a Western, or the story of Julius Caesar. To me it's the emotion, the lies, the double-cross, whether it's Brutus doing it to Caesar or Bob Stack doing it to Robert Ryan that defines what kind of drama it is.

The creepy thing about battle is you always feel alone.

If your first scene doesn't give you a hard on, throw it out!

Film is a battleground. Love, hate, violence, action, death...In a word, emotion.

Being a hooker does not mean being evil. The same with a pick-pocket, or even a thief. You do what you do out of necessity.

A woman is just a script, but a cigar is a motion picture.

Mark Twain didn't psychoanalyze Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer. Dickens didn't put Oliver Twist on the couch because he was hungry! Good copy comes out of people, Johnny, not out of a lot of explanatory medical terms.

We got a right to climb out of the sewer and live like other people. We could start from scratch. Make every minute count twice for the one we lost.

Extending the language of film sometimes starts with just trying to show one true thing.

We don't murder, we kill.... You don't murder animals, you kill them.

Movement should be a counter, whether in action scenes or dialogue or whatever. It counters where your eye is going. This style thing, for me it's all fitted to the action, to the script, to the characters.

Life is in color, but black and white is more realistic.

Ninety-five per cent of films are born of frustration, of self despair, of ambition for survival, for money, for fattening bank accounts. Five per cent, maybe less, are made because a man has an idea, an idea which he must express.

A film is like a battleground. It's love, hate, action, violence, death—In one word, emotions.

If a story doesn't give you a hard-on in the first couple of scenes, throw it in the goddamned garbage.

When you're at the end of your rope, all you have to do is make one foot move out in front of the other. Just take the next step. That's all there is to it