What we all like in life, I think, is the challenge of making something... that is not easy to do.

When Fred Astaire danced, everything in this world was perfect.

I think of myself as a meat-and-potatoes kind of director.

What we think about Paris is a part of how we feel about it. Our idea of Paris is our idea and we don't know that that's not necessarily the way it really is. It feels so real.

I can still dance a little, yes, but I like singing better. It's more fun.

Jean-Luc Godard said that cinema is the truth 24 frames a second. I think cinema is lies 24 frames a second.

You know, sound was still a fairly new thing when I came into movies. And the reason musicals happened is because of sound. They could put music in the picture! That's how it all began.

There was never any point in my life when I wasn't called Mr. Donen. I'm told my first words were, 'Call me Mr. Donen.' But I suspect that's apocryphal. My mother, Mrs. Donen, tended to exaggerate.

I started dancing when I saw Fred Astaire in 'Flying Down to Rio,' at approximately nine years old. Fred Astaire influenced me, more than anything, to be in 'show business.

My childhood wasn't very happy. It's a long, grim story about being a Jew in a small southern town.

I don't have too many friends. I have only a few people who I really love.

An intelligent person can rationalize anything, a wise person doesn't try.

My art recognizes the human place, the human context - especially in Britain, which is a landscape so worked by people for thousands of years, written, deeply ingrained with the presence of people.

I always lose the election in the polls, and I always win it on election day.

It is today an accepted principle of golfing architecture that the tiger should be teased and trapped and tested, while the rabbit should be left to peace, since he can make his own hell for himself.

I am this bundle of what has been, and what has been accomplished.

I give no more paroles to British officers.

If you intellectualize and examine the creative process too carefully it can evaporate and vanish. It's not only terribly difficult to talk about, it's also dangerous.

Joy and sorrow are both my perpetual companions, but the joy is called Past and the sorrow Present.

Life is hard. And we better laugh at everything, otherwise we're going down the tube.

What is the art world? I never really understood. I started doing this stuff to do what I want to do. Not to be this or that.