In the early days of film, fans used to idolize a whole star - they would take one star and love everything about that star ... Today people can idolize a star in one area and forget about him in another. A big rock star might sell millions and millions of records, but then if he makes a bad movie ... forget it.

I really believe in empty spaces, although, as an artist, I make a lot of junk. Empty space is never-wasted space. Wasted space is any space that has art in it. An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have but that he, for some reason, thinks it would be a good idea to give them.

When the Woolworth's-Hot-Fudge-Sundae switch goes on, then I know I really have something.

If there's ever a problem, I film it and it's no longer a problem. It's a film.

Security breeds stagnation.

The girls in California were probably prettier in a standard sense than the New York girls--blonder and in better health, I guess; but I still preferred the way the girls in New York looked--stranger and more neurotic (a girl always looked more beautiful and fragile when she was about to have a nervous breakdown).

Romance is finding your fantasy in people who don't have it.