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

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.

An audience is never wrong. An individual member of it may be an imbecile, but a thousand imbeciles together in the dark - that is critical genius.

The Austrians are brilliant people. They made the world believe that Hitler was a German and Beethoven an Austrian.

I met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my life, but you - you're twenty minutes.

Don't be too clever for an audience. Make it obvious. Make the subtleties obvious also.

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.