"I prefer the old masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford."

"I can think of nothing that an audience won't understand. The only problem is to interest them; once they are interested, they understand anything in the world."

"I have made an art form of the interview. The French are the best interviewers, despite their addiction to the triad, like all Cartesians."

"I would rather be on the set than doing anything."

"People are losing the capacity to listen to words or follow ideas."

"There were centuries when civilization had no theater."

"My kind of director is an actor-director who writes."

"I don't like television when it gets near to photographed plays."

"The only reason for doing a play is to make a statement about it, and by that I don't mean a conceit of the producer."

"I worry a lot about taking care of my dependents, all those perfectly ordinary middle-class preoccupations."

"I'm a provincial. I live very much like a hermit: reading, listening to music, working in the cutting room, writing, commercial work - which doesn't take up that much time."

"Everything bad that has ever happened to me has been caused by agents or lawyers."

"I never said I was a genius."

"In my real movie-going days, which were the thirties, you didn't stand in line. You strolled down the street and sallied into the theater at any hour of the day or night."

"Anybody who speaks quietly and shrivels up in company is unbelievably arrogant."

"Each multiplex has screens allocated to each studio. The screens need filling. Studios have to create product to fill their screen, and the amount of good product is limited."

"Did you ever stop to think why cops are always famous for being dumb? Simple. Because they don't have to be anything else."

"Criminals are never very amusing. It's because they're failures. Those who make real money aren't counted as criminals. This is a class distinction, not an ethical problem."

"I've always found it very sanitary to be broke."

"Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason."

"I don't pray because I don't want to bore God."

"At twenty-one, so many things appear solid, permanent, untenable."

"The essential is to excite the spectators. If that means playing Hamlet on a flying trapeze or in an aquarium, you do it."

"The enemy of society is middle class and the enemy of life is middle age."

"I feel I have to protect myself against things. So I'm pretty careful to lose most of them."

"I do not suppose I shall be remembered for anything. But I don't think about my work in those terms. It is just as vulgar to work for the sake of posterity as to work for the sake of money."

"I hate Woody Allen physically, I dislike that kind of man."

"The ideal American type is perfectly expressed by the Protestant, individualist, anti-conformist, and this is the type that is in the process of disappearing. In reality there are few left."

"Only very intelligent people don't wish they were in politics, and I'm dumb enough to want to be in there."

"I'm one of those fellows so frightened of driving that I go 80 miles an hour - and the more frightened I get, the faster I go."

Nothing has happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.

"Look at the real prodigies, and I look like nothing compared to them."

"The two things you cannot do effectively on stage are pray and copulate."

"If I don't like somebody's looks, I don't like them."

"I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time."

"Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations."

"The laws and the stage, both are a form of exhibitionism."

"Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him."

"Ecstasy is not really part of the scene we can do on celluloid."

"I don't say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could."

"Nobody who takes on anything big and tough can afford to be modest."

"I started at the top and worked my way down."

"If I ever own a restaurant, I will never allow the waiters to ask if the diners like their dishes. Particularly when they're talking."

"Movie directing is a perfect refuge for the mediocre."

"Living in the lap of luxury isn't bad except that you never know when luxury is going to stand up."

"Film is like a colony and there are very few colonists."

"The first thing one must remember about film is that it is a young medium. And it is essential for every responsible artist to cultivate the ground that has been left fallow."

"Everybody denies I am a genius - but nobody ever called me one!"

"When television came along, I'd already done more than 10 years of radio work and I thought everyone would want me. I sat around waiting for the phone to ring - and it didn't."

"A good artist should be isolated. If he isn't isolated, something is wrong."