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.

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.

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

I would rather be on the set than doing anything.

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

In common with all Protestant or Jewish cultures, America was developed on the idea that your word is your bond. Otherwise, the frontier could never have been opened, 'cause it was lawless. A man's word had to mean something.

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.

I think I made essential a mistake in staying in movies, because I - but it's a mistake I can't regret, because it's like saying, 'I shouldn't have stayed married to that woman, but I did because I love her.'

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

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

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

One shouldn't ever be conscious of the author as lecturer. When social or moral points are too heavily stressed, I always get uncomfortable.

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

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

There were centuries when civilization had no theater.

My mother and father were both much more remarkable than any story of mine can make them. They seem to me just mythically wonderful.

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

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

See, I believe that it is not true that different races and nations are alike. I'm profoundly convinced that that's a total lie. I think people are different. Sardinians, for example, have stubby little fingers. Bosnians have short necks.

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

They teach anything in universities today. You can major in mud pies.

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

Hollywood is the only industry, even taking in soup companies, which does not have laboratories for the purpose of experimentation.