If there's anything I hate more than not being taken seriously, it's being taken too seriously.

The best director is the one you don't see.

I never overestimate the audience, nor do I underestimate them. I just have a very rational idea as to who we’re dealing with, and that we’re not making a picture for Harvard Law School, we’re making a picture for middle-class people, the people that you see on the subway, or the people that you see in a restaurant. Just normal people.

I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut.

Hollywood didn't kill Marilyn Monroe, it's the Marilyn Monroes who are killing Hollywood.

They've tried to manufacture other Marilyn Monroes and they will undoubtedly keep trying. But it won't work. She was an original.

You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning.