"When I started working on Wake in Fright, I was often asked how I could make a film about a people, a country, a culture I knew nothing about and was experiencing for the first time. Rightly or wrongly, I would say, "Well, that’s easy, I'm Canadian and Canada has the same British colonial background as Australia." There is the same lack of self-confidence, which, in Canada's case, it's to the extent of a rampant inferiority complex. Australia has a different kind of energy but, more important, is that the countries are geographically the same. They have the same vast empty spaces, which don't liberate, they imprison. And I also understood the men of the outback – their camaraderie, their support of each other and their generosity – because I had met the same type of men in the north of Canada. I've actually described Canada to some people as Australia on the rocks!"

"Jock Crawford: [speaking to John after he tries to shoot himself] I, uh, hate to trouble you, John, but rather than tire you, I thought I'd write down what had happened and you could sign it, okay? "The gunshot wound to my head was the result of an accident. I was visiting my friend, Clarence F. Tydon, after a hunting trip. I dropped my .22 rifle at the floor of his kitchen butt first, believing it to be unloaded. It exploded, and that's all I remember." That'll be about it, wouldn't it?"

"Hollywood, California: city of contrast. Home to the rich and powerful... yet so popular with the broken and destitute."

"A center of casual violence and capricious harassment where rampant vice and amorality permeate every stratum of society, and the barrier between food and sex has totally dissolved."

"Thomas F. Wilson — Arch Cummings"

"Clayton Rohner — Chaz Vyshinski"

"Leah Pinsent — Nan Youngblood"

"Amy Steel — Kit Graham"

"Jay Baker — Harvey Edison, Jr."

"Deborah Foreman — Muffy/Buffy St. John"

"Deborah Goodrich — Nikki Brashares"

"Ken Olandt — Rob Ferris"

"Griffin O'Neal — Skip St. John"

"April Fool’s Day was conceived as a parody of the genre from the very beginning, hence, April Fool’s Day instead of some other holiday. I only tried to make what I thought would be a scary movie; it just didn't happen to involve any gore or any onscreen violence. I have always believed that the anticipation of violence, the threat of violence, is usually much more frightening than the act of violence itself. You can rarely beat the audience’s imagination."

"Hey guy, your fly is open and your Hostess Twinkie is hanging out."

"[watching Kit and Rob through binoculars] Respectable young Quaker couple returning from a quiet afternoon of nonviolent sex."

"Muffy hasn't been in an institution for three years, she's been at Vassar!"

"Guess who's going to be the life of the party!"

"The Roman Empire, like any other empire, was made up purely of bureaucrats, the army, the priests and everything else, and he systematically goes from one institution to the other, trying to provoke them and trying to get an action out of them, and this is why in our view the misconception is that Caligula was completely mad... Anyway, he tries to destroy the institutions. Of course, naturally, he never fails. I mean, he does fail, simply because it's impossible to destroy a burocracy, and I think that is a very relevant point for modern-day audiences."

"I do recall one particular night shoot… We were called to the set at four o'clock in the afternoon. As usual, nothing was ready. They'd built a set of Tiberius's grotto, on three acres, and were assembling all of the extras and background. The producers worriedly asked if I would go into Peter's trailer (he was playing Tiberius) and go through the lines with him, which we did few times. And then he told me the most remarkable story – whether it is true or not I have no idea – about his grave-robbing Etruscan tombs. He said the best way to find Etruscan jewellery and artefacts was to find the drains in the tombs, and very gingerly sift through them with your fingers because, as the bodies decompose, all of the artifacts deposit themselves into the channels. The thought of Peter O'Toole on his hands and knees in an Etruscan catacomb makes for a lovely image. We spent hours and hours in this trailer. He was smoking … it certainly wasn't tobacco. By the time we got onto the set, 12 hours had passed. We couldn't believe our eyes: the set was covered with people engaging in every sexual perversion in the book. We were totally bemused. Peter would start off his speech, "Rome was but a city..." then pause, look around, and say to me: "Are they doing the Irish jig over there?" I'd look over and there would be two dwarves and an amputee dancing around some girls splayed out on a giant dildo. This went on quite a few times."

"People think of him [Caligula] as a revolutionary or a figure of fun or a madman. There are so many aspects to him that we know really little about him, just the information that was given to us through a historian, a Roman historian called Suetonius, and he was from the other side of the family, so Suetonius paints Caligula as a very wicked madman, and that's the only reason that Suetonius considers why he did so many, on the face of it, crazy things. My interpretation of the character is not quite like that."

"Let me tell you how ridiculous it got. When it came to casting certain senators and noblemen, [Brass] would deliberately recruit them from a pool of ex-convicts, thieves, and political anarchists that he happened to keep in touch with. That was his sense of humor."

"It has an irresistible mixture of art and genitals in it."

"I promised that Caligula would fundamentally change the theatergoing public's perception of motion pictures. I said that it would foment changes within the industry itself. I really shot my mouth off, but I meant every word of it, and I still do."

"I made Caligula for the masses, not for a few self-appointed elitists. Besides, every time I read a lousy review I wanted the pleasure of knowing it cost the author $7.50 to write it."

"The fact that we have used celebrated movie personalities to make a film with sexually explicit passages is probably the source of the controversy. People talk about the violence, of course, but it's easier and more sophisticated to say that you're shocked by the violence rather than the sex."

"[We] had to remove a lot of the material that Gore had originally written into the script, so the film is now somewhat more sensual than the original version. In fact, just to give you one example, in the beginning - other than between Caligula and his sister, Drusilla - there were practically no heterosexual scenes at all. Every sex scene Vidal wrote was homosexual in content."

"I never intended to involve myself, certainly not in the actual shooting, until I saw the way Brass had mishandled and brutalized the film's sexuality. No matter what instructions I gave him, no matter how many times we discussed a scene and agreed on its interpretation, Brass would go out of his way to do the opposite. When I was in Rome and present at the studio, he would work within the parameters we had originally agreed. The minute I left Rome or even turned my back, he would go thundering off on his own."

"I don't see the film as being pornographic, and I certainly didn't set out to make a pornographic movie. It's a question of definitions. To me, pornography is a work of bad art, as opposed to good art. And I don't think Caligula qualifies under the heading of bad art. It was a huge commercial undertaking, and at the same time we wanted to make a serious statement. We've done with cinematic images what so many authors and historians have done with words - we have re-created a complex life-style that flourished before Christ and the Judeo-Christian philosophy came into being."

"The film was like being on an acid trip. It has its good moments and it has its bad moments and is a fantastical journey. It went where angels fear to tread. In many scenes, you're going: "Oh my God, I can't believe we're going to actually shoot this!" It was sort of horrific, but it was also wonderful."

"Now you are a man, Caligula. What are you going to do? You must be the master of your own destiny. Take it with both hands."

"I am nursing a viper in Rome's bosom."

"When Rome was just a city, we were just citizens, known to one another, you see. We were frugal, good, disciplined and dignified. The Romans I rule are not what they were. They lust. They lust for power and pleasure, money, the wives of other men. Oh yes, I am a true moralist, and stern as any Cato. Fate chose me to govern swine. In my old age, I am become a swineherd."

"I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the night. Although I have taken the form of Gaius Caligula, I am all men as I am no man, and therefore I am a god."

"Every senator believes himself to be a potential Caesar. Therefore every senator is guilty of treason, in thought if not in deed. The senate is the natural enemy of any Caesar, "Little Boots". They offer to prove any law I made before I made it. I said: 'What if I go mad? What then?' No answer. They were born to be slaves."

"As if there ever could be an antidote against Caesar!"

"Guccione hijacked the film and sandbagged everybody."

"Caligula is sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash. If it is not the worst film I have ever seen, that makes it all the more shameful: People with talent allowed themselves to participate in this travesty."

"Many of the terrible things that we are going to show in this movie are indeed from history, or indeed from the only two sources that we have; Suetonius and Tacitus, and they may be true or they may not be true. But whatever they are, they are representative of something that those who are interested in history have known for 2000 years and which, until now, have never been [...] divulged to the general public."

"You see how I have exhausted myself to make your wedding holy. My blessings to you both."

"From this moment, all official oaths will contain the following phrase; I will value neither my life nor the lives of my children any more highly than I do the emperor and of his sister Drusilla."

"I am interested in all that is Rome, even down to the length of a toga."

"I am Rome. Wherever I am, Rome is, and there is the senate and the people of Rome."

"Anneka Di Lorenzo - Messalina"

"Lori Wagner - Agrippina"

"Bruno Brive - Gemellus"

"Osiride Pevarello - Giant"

"Donato Placido - Proculus"

"Richard Parets - Mnester"