"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."

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

"If only all Rome had just one neck!"

"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."

"With Tiberius, there's always something to fear."

"They spoke of it first in whispers... then it took the media by storm."

"No rumour can match the reality."

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

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

"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."

"Donato Placido - Proculus"

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

"Giancarlo Badessi - Claudius"

"Osiride Pevarello - Giant"

"John Steiner - Longinus"

"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."

"Bruno Brive - Gemellus"

"Paula Mitchell - Subura Singer"

"Lori Wagner - Agrippina"

"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."

"Anneka Di Lorenzo - Messalina"

"Keiko Kishi - Eiko Tanaka"

"Eiji Okada - Toshiro Tono"

"Herb Edelman - Oliver Wheat"

"Richard Jordan - Dusty"

"James Shigeta - Goro Tanaka"

"Separated by blood and centuries - United by a Woman - Now, hurled together against the Yakuza . . . brotherhood of the East."

"The Secret Society of Japan"

"A man never forgets. A man pays his debts."

"100 years ago they were called Samurai."

"Robert Mitchum - Harry Kilmer"

"Goro Tanaka: Ken is a tormented man. It is Eiko, of course, but it is also Japan. Ken is a relic, a leftover of another age, of another country."

"American sword cuts on a push stroke, Japanese sword cuts on a pull stroke. When an American cracks up, he opens up the window and shoots up a bunch of strangers. When a Japanese cracks up, he closes the window and kills himself. Everything is in reverse."

"Ken Takakura - Ken Tanaka"

"Kris Kristofferson - the biker"

"Brian Keith - George Tanner"

"It's got guts."

"Why is his head worth one million dollars and the lives of 21 people?"

"Warren Oates - Bennie"

"Isela Vega - Elita"

"I will pay one million dollars. Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia!"

"You ought to be drunk in Fresno, California. This place is a palace."

"I've been down this road before, and you don't know the way."

"Robert Webber - Sappensly"

"Don't you look at me with your Goddamn fucking eyes!"

"A double bourbon with a champagne back, none of your tijano bullshit, and fuck off."

"There ain't nothing sacred about a hole in the ground or the man that's in it. Or you. Or me."

"I've killed people... and worse, a whole lot worse."

"Gig Young - Johnny Quill"