Automatic simply means that you can?t repair it yourself.

Don't follow trends, start trends.

I made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries.

In our film profession you may have Gable's looks, Tracy's art, Marlene's legs or Liz's violet eyes, but they don't mean a thing without that swinging thing called courage.

Things own you. That's the trouble with capitalism. Things own you. With communism and fascism -- ideas own you. One idea and you can't have any other.

Most of ideologies are not based on the individual -- no matter what they say. There are these peoples' democracies, nationalism -- they're all dictatorships. And I think any kind of dictatorship is bad for the individual.

Everybody who works under any system feels confined. It is a natural reaction. You are confined to a certain extent. You are confined if you work in a bank, if you paint. You are confined, in a sense, to your art -- the enclosure of your mind. Everybody should break out.

I always felt the world cannot fall apart as long as free men see the rainbow, feel the rain and hear the laugh of a child.

Scriptwriting is the toughest part of the whole racket... the least understood and the least noticed.

Man is a unique individual. He can never be put in a system where he becomes just another notch. Another nail.

My advice to young film-makers is this: don't follow trends, start them!

Film is one of the three universal languages, the other two: mathematics and music.

Do not help the quick moneymakers who have delusions about taking possession of classics by smearing them with paint.

If You Want to Send a Message, Try Western Union.

There are no rules in filmmaking.

If the audience gets everything, if they see the photography and notice that it is good, then the story goes out the window, but if you become involved with the lives of the actors and forget that you are seeing mechanical devices on a huge screen -- forget the make-believe -- this is the job of the director to involve the audience with the actors.

Film is universal. All the countries of the world are making films. Hollywood is the only major unsubsidized center for films. To my knowledge all others are at least partially subsidized. I'm glad Hollywood isn't.

Most ideologies of the world are not for the individual. They're against the individual. Communism, fascism. Any kind of an ism -- almost -- they're against the individual.

I was the enemy of the major studio. I believed in one man -- one film. I believed one man should make the film. And I believed the director should be that one man. One man should do it -- I didn't give a damn who. I just couldn't accept art as a committee. I could only accept art as an extension of an individual.

Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream, it takes over as the number one hormone; it bosses the enzymes; directs the pineal gland; plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to film is more film.