I don’t want any description of me to be accurate; I want it to be flattering. I don’t think people who have to sing for their supper ever like to be described truthfully – not in print anyway. We need to sell tickets, so we need good reviews.
I discovered at the age of six that everything was a phony, worked with mirrors. Since then, I’ve always wanted to be a magician.
Hollywood is a gold-plated suburb suitable for golfers, gardeners, assorted middlemen, and contented movies stars. I am none of these things.
Almost all serious stories in the world are stories of failure with a death in it. But there is more lost paradise in them than defeat.
By nature, I am an experimentalist. I don’t believe much in accomplishment.
Cinema as a means of expression fascinates me.
Criticism is the essence of creation.
Every true artist must, in his own way, be a magician, a charlatan.
Friendship creates only the illusion of not being alone.
Hollywood expects you to experiment but on a film that makes money and if you don’t make money, you’re to blame. Your job is to make money.
There are a thousand ways of playing a good classic. If it were effective, I would play Hamlet on a trapeze.
You could write all the IDEAS of all the movies, my own included, on the head of a pin.
Husbands should revolt from time to time. Even the best circus-number becomes boring if the beast is too tame.
I love moving around from town to town. I never got on a train in my life without my spirits rising.
A bad word from a colleague can darken a whole day. We need encouragement a lot more than we admit, even to ourselves.
Don’t give them what you think they want. Give them what they never thought was possible.
Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations.
I have all the equipment to be a politician. Total shamelessness.
In my real movie-going days, which were the thirties, you didn’t stand in line. You strolled down the street and sallied into the theater at any hour of the day or night.
I don’t pray really, because I don’t want to bore God.