The first really important book I read about filmmaking was The Film Technique by Pudovkin. This was some time before I had ever touched a movie camera and it opened my eyes to cutting and montage.

Never say no to an idea - you never know how that idea will ignite another idea.

However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.

The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good.

I do not always know what I want, but I do know what I don't want.

You're an idealist, and I pity you as I would the village idiot.

A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.

Be suspicious of people who have, or crave, power. Never, ever go near power. Don't become friends with anyone who has real power. It's dangerous.

The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning.

Polly Esther Doe was born at 8:03 a.m. on August 14.

To really know who you are, your core self, you need to know who you are pretending to be and who you are not, and the way to heal is the same way to grow in awareness.

When you demand perfection within yourself, you become more fallible.

I'm going to outplay you. That's the mentality I have, and you should want to outplay me.

If the schooling system does not rapidly close the gap between what it does, and what it should do in response to the demands of the 21st century, it will simply become irrelevant.

I've listened to Jazz since I was born and always knew I'd be a Jazz singer!

You guys will write what you want to write, people will say what they want to say. I can't control any of that. All I can control is how I play. I'm trying to be the best player I can be.

Six weeks is a long time to wait, and a still longer time for a girl to keep a secret.

The best thing I ever heard was in the '60s. I heard Jimi Hendrix play 'I Can Hear The Grass Grow' after a rehearsal, and it was brilliant.

It is not a mistress I have lost but half of myself, a soul for which my soul seems to have been made.