I am very proud of the fact that I led the arts contingent on the civil rights march in the summer of '63. In many ways, I think it was the high-water mark of the civil rights movement.

Film is the only art form whose raw materials are so horrendously expensive that the artist cannot afford to buy them for himself.

In the mainstream film market, certainly in television, sex is handled fairly discreetly. I think the abuse of extraordinarily graphic violence and language presses much closer to the tolerance of public taste.

We don't think well of our presidents when they are serving. Even Kennedy, with such a short presidency, was beginning to lose his remarkable appeal to the American people when he was suddenly sainted by death.

You have to be very careful to view yourself with a somewhat skeptical eye and to remember that you're not here taking down everything I'm saying because you think I'm such a marvelous fellow but because your editors say go get 1,200 words or whatever on Chuck Heston.

One of the [Million Mom] marchers said 'the hands that rock the cradle rule this nation.' I thought, 'no Madame, the hands that rock the cradle rule our families and governments and corporations. The hands that wrote the Constitution rule this nation'.

You could think of extraordinary examples to the contrary: The Grapes of Wrath... and even into the 70s.