So slowly in my mind formed the idea of melodrama, a form I found to perfection in American pictures. They were naive, they were that something completely different. They were completely Art-less.

Intellectualism came very late to America. That's why Americans are so proud of it. I found very few real intellectuals in America. But there are so many pseudo-intellectuals.

There arose a belief in style - and in banality. Banality encompassed politics, too, because it was a common belief that politics were not worthy of art.

If I can say one thing for my pictures, it is a certain craftsmanship. A thought which has gone into every angle. There is nothing there without an optical reason.

For a house, somewhere near Los Angeles I found an old church. Very old, no longer used. So we moved the church to the land, and I took off the steeple, and I got my hands dirty.

Your characters have to remain innocent of what your picture is after.

This is the dialectic - there is a very short distance between high art and trash, and trash that contains an element of craziness is by this very quality nearer to art.

You have to think with the heart.

Rock Hudson was not an educated man, but that very beautiful body of his was putty in my hands.

These happy endings all express the weak and sly promise that the world is not rotten and out of joint but meaningful and ultimately in excellent condition.

My idea at this time, which was slowly developing, was to create a comedie humaine with little people, average people - samples from every period in American life.

Reckless youth makes rueful age.

I have become an obstinate heretic in the eyes of my colleagues. Momentary success carries more power of conviction than reflections upon principles.

Hear me when I say I believe nothings gonna change destiny. Whatevers meant to be will work out perfectly.

Why does Mosley always speak as though he were a feudal landlord abusing tenants who are in arrears with their rent ?

Be kind to all beings, this is more meritorious than bathing at the sixty-eight sacred shrines of pilgrimage and donating money.

I think some people in their 20s really get it, that acting is about creativity and the work. They get their maturity from their work.

Remorse sleeps during a prosperous period but wakes up in adversity.

A true critic ought to dwell rather upon excellencies than imperfections

I have been dealing with claims that I cheated and had an unfair advantage in winning my seven Tours since 1999.

I was funny around my family. My family, they're pretty funny, too.