Yes, I was hired by Universal because they needed a comedy director. They had seen Scandal and liked it. I saw an opportunity even in those comedies to begin my project of American films.

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.

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.

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.

I live my life in growing orbits which move out over the things of the world.

Lake water, even when boiled, has an effect on my digestive system similar to the movement of a hangman’s trapdoor.

It is not for its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what they can purchase with it.

One always finds time for what one likes.

I love America. It's got potential to be great again. But, really, it's not great right now.

Even though there's stuff that I really like that is just a retro sort of style or whatever, I feel like what I'm most excited by is new mixes of things.

you have the right to live a beautiful life

What we clearly need is experimentation with market reforms and private delivery options [in health care].

If you saw me every day, you would actually think I am wearing the exact same gray suit.

A Christian is committed to the belief that Love and Mercy are the most powerful forces on earth.