I never said I was a genius.

Movie directing is a perfect refuge for the mediocre.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

I know people who have a much better recollection of their childhood than I do. They remember very well when they were a year and a half and two years old. I've only one or two daguerreotypes that come to mind.

I have a great love and respect for religion, great love and respect for atheism. What I hate is agnosticism, people who do not choose.

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

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

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 am essentially a hack, a commercial person. If I had a hobby, I would immediately make money on it or abandon it.

I don't want to forgive myself. That's why I hate psychoanalysis I think if you're guilty of something you should live with it. Get rid of it - how can you get rid of a real guilt? I think people should live with it, face up to it.

If you've noticed that I don't use long takes, it's not because I don't like them, but because no one gives me the necessary means to treat myself to them. It's more economical to make one image, then this image and then that image, and try to control them later, in the editing studio.

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

Fake is as old as the Eden tree.

I want to give the audience a hint of a scene. No more than that. Give them too much and they won't contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. That's what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes a social act.