Sergio Leone

Virginia Woolf was one example. She was called the "Lover of 100 Gangsters."

— Sergio Leone

I don't enter into particulars with [Ennio Morricone]. I give him the feeling and the suggestions of the characters.

— Sergio Leone

It is clear that the vehicle of the western was a very interesting vehicle for me to contraband some of my ideas.

— Sergio Leone

Especially in gangster films, with the gangster's moll - she would always be more or less of an object. And I'm not…

— Sergio Leone

When you manage to express something with a look and the music instead of saying it with words or having the character…

— Sergio Leone

My mother was an actress. My father was an actor and a director. I am the son of filmmakers.

— Sergio Leone

It's a little hard to avoid putting both war and politics in, in that they both come into the activity, but on…

— Sergio Leone

My films are often characterized by the lack of women present in them, except for this last one [Once Upon a Time…

— Sergio Leone

I always fish out antique ideas, very old ideas.

— Sergio Leone

I don't want to do a war film per se. Nor do I want to do a political film.

— Sergio Leone

I'm not saying that the Americans had the same impact as the Jesuits, but I do see them as a very specialized…

— Sergio Leone

The world is in America. In Italy is only Italy. France is full of France. Germany is full of Germany. In a…

— Sergio Leone

What I do is give Ennio Morricone suggestions and describe to him my characters, and then, quite often, he'll possibly write five…

— Sergio Leone

I didn't want [actress] just to be a woman standing at the window, waving hello and goodbye to men as they came…

— Sergio Leone

Sometimes, I even recite the role to the actor if it's not clear. And I beg them not to imitate me, because…

— Sergio Leone

The function of the flashback is Freudian...You have to let them wander like the imagination or like a dream.

— Sergio Leone

I've always had the sensation that people in America are always avant-garde. Very attentive to all the new innovations. But it's very…

— Sergio Leone

The American public is a very specialized public.

— Sergio Leone

Charlie Chaplin, too, through spectacle, contraband certain ideas, put them through, ideas that even today are not being expressed by great statesmen…

— Sergio Leone

It [film-making] really just has to do with my own ghosts and phantoms. And I have to say, in the end, it's…

— Sergio Leone

I have to be honest about one thing. When I want to America, no on asked me how I was. Everyone always…

— Sergio Leone

There was also the myth of the western films. But my films are borrowed not from the story of the West in…

— Sergio Leone

When one goes to see Modern Times, for instance, one understands much more about socialism than listening to the man who was…

— Sergio Leone

My discussion is one that has gone all the way from Fistful of Dollars through Once Upon a Time in America. But…

— Sergio Leone

[The director] has to, I feel, be one step back, not only from cinema, but also from politics and all these issues…

— Sergio Leone