Lillian Gish thought that there should be a cabinet position for the arts and I think she was right. I think she was right.

When I'm in New York I look at the Empire State Building and feel as though it belongs to me ... or is it vice versa?

Sometimes I worked with just a background of a rock or a tree or black velvet, and just had to imagine the whole thing.

My children didn't when they were little because I thought that they had to be of a certain age. I hoped they liked me well enough not to want to see me in that sort of a spot.

They were very considerate, I must say. Every time I felt I was about to slip out of these fingers and would yell for help, they'd let me down and re-organize things.

Only in your imagination can you revise.

Recently, a six-year-old boy said to me, "I've been waiting to meet you for half my life."

Juan Tripp was a friend. Good name for an airline man, huh? Juan Tripp after another?

Paul Lucas had a particularly amusing accent, so I chuckled. That was terrible; I shouldn't have done that, but he took it too big. He got up and said he couldn't work with people who laughed at him!

I went to Washington to ask for a little residual payment for the people who had written films in the early, early days, people who never got any residuals on tapes or anything at all.

As far as advice, that will be in my next book, my next collection. I certainly never like to instruct anyone, but just say as I feel. That's the same as advice, isn't it?

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

The key to most difficulties does not lie in the dilemmas themselves, but in our relationship to them.

My teeth became sour as I listened to his story. It was then that I understood why he was quiet all the time.

No wonder he has such nice teeth. They probably pay him in dental floss.

Obviously, there are lots of lessons to be learned on a first movie.

You are so annoying. I could literally slap the sh*t out of you and feel so much better.

Be careful of men who are bald and rich; the arrogance of "rich" usually cancels out the nice of "bald".

I envy no man that knows more than myself, but pity them that know less.

Faith in God's promises means not always following the expected, rational path.

Commonplace objects are constantly changing… The pies, for example, we now see, are not going to be around forever. We are merely used to the idea that things do not change.