Happiness is working with Jack Lemmon.

The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.

The forest of Compiegne. Look at it. Like a kind grandmother dozing in her rocking chair. Old trees practicing curtsies in the wind because they still think Louis XIV is king.

[on pop idol Donny Osmond] He has Van Gogh's ear for music.

Ah, Marilyn, Hollywood's Joan of Arc, our Ultimate Sacrificial Lamb. Well, let me tell you, she was mean, terribly mean. The meanest woman I have ever known in this town. I am appalled by this Marilyn Monroe cult. Perhaps it's getting to be an act of courage to say the truth about her. Well, let me be courageous. I have never met anyone as utterly mean as Marilyn Monroe. Nor as utterly fabulous on the screen, and that includes Garbo.

Money makes even bastards legitimate.

On Ernst Lubitsch: He could do more with a closed door than other directors could do with an open fly.