Well you're talking about a long career, a lot of movies, a lot of stars. I guess working with Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn was a great privilege.

There's evidence of a social decline in direct proportion to technology and the industrialization of the motion picture industry.

I long for the days when grosses were not even known. There was no weekend competition.

Yes, there are directors I admire, the mavericks. Altman. There are many good directors.

Now a movie goes out to two, three thousand theaters and by Friday night at 10 o'clock they know if you are in or out. That desperate competition is, I think, horrendous. It's awful.

It's kind of interesting to be a director who is all of a sudden being an actor playing an agent. This is my whole world!

I don't know a lot of agents like Al Hack.

No one turns down a film with Woody; it's something everyone wants in their career as an important moment. He's such a comedic genius, without question, so I was thrilled.

There are always at least five good films at the end of the year to get nominated, but generally speaking nowadays, it's more of the independent films that are recognized.

Greatness can only be bought through time.

Gods are like people. They believe anything if you tell them right way.

The vitality of a new movement in Art must be gauged by the fury it arouses.

I could not flourish in the Hollywood system because the first thing spoken about is "What genre is it?" and "Who's it for?" It's a very strange question to me; it's for human beings.

Life, the permission to know death.

Businessmen go down with their businesses because they like the old way so well they cannot change.

The quality of a man's mind can generally be judged by the size of his wastepaper basket.

I like when things happen organically and make sense.

Malcolm X was the national spokesperson of the N.O.I., and he wasn't represented in their own newspaper for over a year.

The number of contemporary artists who appeal to me is infinitesimal.