The Oscars demonstrate the will of the people to control and judge those they have elected to stand above them (much, perhaps, as in bygone days, an election celebrated the same).

Being among my people is a delight. We Jews live among ourselves. I love it.

I've been alienating my public since I was 20 years old. When 'American Buffalo' came out on Broadway, people would storm out and say, 'How dare he use that kind of language!' Of course I'm alienating the public! That's what they pay me for.

You can't rely on the acting to tell the story.

For it is written that just as it is forbidden to partake of the forbidden, it is forbidden not to partake of the permitted.

There's no such thing as talent; you just have to work hard enough.

The realization that I came to is that each citizen for himself or herself understands the economics, which is, "I better make more than I spend and I better put something aside for a rainy day, and I want to get a good idea about what to do with the surplus so that perhaps it can grow while I'm sleeping." And that that's capitalism. Everybody practices it, but half of the country - those on the left - deny that it's true.