I was a pretty shy, lonely kid. I blossomed about age 17, when I went to college.

I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.

When I was about 9, I had polio, and people were very frightened for their children, so you tended to be isolated. I was paralyzed for a while, so I watched television.

An essential element of any art is risk. If you don't take a risk then how are you going to make something really beautiful, that hasn't been seen before?

I used to love going into local hardware stores, to look at little things they made locally. Nowadays it's harder, though you can still do it in Vietnam.

I had an older brother who was very interested in literature, so I had an early exposure to literature, and and theater. My father sometimes would work in musical comedies.

There's nothing creative about living within your means.

Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos.

We were raised in an Italian-American household, although we didn't speak Italian in the house. We were very proud of being Italian, and had Italian music, ate Italian food.

You don't have to specialize - do everything that you love and then, at some time, the future will come together for you in some form.

If the movie works, nobody notices the mistakes... If the movie doesn't work, the only thing people notice are mistakes.

Is life worth living? That depends on the liver.

A brainscan cannot interpret itself and neither can a data dashboard in education.

Nothing is wrong about giving a rose to someone you like or love.

Popular music is popular because a lot of people like it.

In Democracy, man exploits man; in Communism, it's the other way round.

Complacency is the enemy of study. We cannot really learn anything until we rid ourselves of complacency.

Today's coastal development along with hurricane amnesia places modern man on a collision course with catastrophe if the lessons of history are ignored.

I love uplifting television.

Kazan was an old friend, I met him in 1938. He picked up radio jobs for eating money, so I met him on a couple of radio shows. Later on I was in a play he directed.

To wear dreams on one's feet is to begin to give reality to one's dreams.