Stanley Donen Quotes

When Fred Astaire danced, everything in this world was perfect.

I think of myself as a meat-and-potatoes kind of director.

What we think about Paris is a part of how we feel about it. Our idea of Paris is our idea and we don't know that that's not necessarily the way it really is. It feels so real.

I can still dance a little, yes, but I like singing better. It's more fun.

What we all like in life, I think, is the challenge of making something... that is not easy to do.

Jean-Luc Godard said that cinema is the truth 24 frames a second. I think cinema is lies 24 frames a second.

You know, sound was still a fairly new thing when I came into movies. And the reason musicals happened is because of sound. They could put music in the picture! That's how it all began.

There was never any point in my life when I wasn't called Mr. Donen. I'm told my first words were, 'Call me Mr. Donen.' But I suspect that's apocryphal. My mother, Mrs. Donen, tended to exaggerate.

I started dancing when I saw Fred Astaire in 'Flying Down to Rio,' at approximately nine years old. Fred Astaire influenced me, more than anything, to be in 'show business.

My childhood wasn't very happy. It's a long, grim story about being a Jew in a small southern town.

I don't have too many friends. I have only a few people who I really love.