"Personally, I don't like a girlfriend to have a husband. If she'll fool her husband, I figure she'll fool me."

"In my opinion, there are two things that can absolutely not be carried to the screen: the realistic presentation of the sexual act and praying to God."

"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."

"I love informality. I hate dressing up. I hate to be conventional - and I hate every kind of snob."

"[I have a] fondness for telling stories, like the Arab storytellers on the marketplace. ... I will never grow tired of [telling] stories [and] I make the mistake of thinking that everyone has the same enthusiasm!"

"There are three intolerable things in life - cold coffee, lukewarm champagne, and overexcited women."

"Paris is the playwright's delight. New York is the home of directors. London, however, is the actor's city, the only one in the world. In London, actors are given their head."

"Hollywood is Hollywood. There’s nothing you can say about it that isn’t true, good or bad. And if you get into it, you have no right to be bitter — you’re the one who sat down, and joined the game."

"I've spent most of my mature life trying to prove that I'm not irresponsible."

"Ignorance sheer ignorance. There is no confidence to equal it. It's only when you know something about a profession that you are timid or careful."

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

"There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror."

"'The Godfather' was the glorification of a bunch of bums who never existed."

"Friendship creates only the illusion of not being alone."

"Every true artist must, in his own way, be a magician, a charlatan."

"The most personal thing I've put in [Touch of Evil] is my hatred of the abuse of police power. It's better to see a murderer go free than for a policeman to abuse his power."

"A bad word from a colleague can darken a whole day. We need encouragement a lot more than we admit, even to ourselves."

"Future shock is a sickness which comes from too much change in too short a time. It's the feeling that nothing is permanent anymore."

"I'm not basically a happy person, but I have all kinds of joy."

"The cinema has no boundary; it is a ribbon of dream."

"Working is part of life, I don't know how to distinguish between the two... Work is an expression of life."

"A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army."

"A man is not from where he is born, but where he chooses to die."

"If there hadn't been women we'd still be squatting in a cave eating raw meat, because we made civilization in order to impress our girlfriends."

"Race hate isn't human nature; race hate is the abandonment of human nature."

"I prefer people who rock the boat to people who jump out"

"We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone."

"Don’t give them what you think they want. Give them what they never thought was possible."

"If everyone worked with wide-angle lenses, I'd shoot all my films in 75mm, because I believe very strongly in the possibilities of the 75mm."

"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."