I considered that the homes that people live in exactly describe their lives.

My idea at this time, which was slowly developing, was to create a comedie humaine with little people, average people - samples from every period in American life.

If I can say one thing for my pictures, it is a certain craftsmanship. A thought which has gone into every angle. There is nothing there without an optical reason.

Your camera is the best critic there is. Critics never see as much as the camera does. It is more perceptive than the human eye.

Yes, I was hired by Universal because they needed a comedy director. They had seen Scandal and liked it. I saw an opportunity even in those comedies to begin my project of American films.

For a house, somewhere near Los Angeles I found an old church. Very old, no longer used. So we moved the church to the land, and I took off the steeple, and I got my hands dirty.

I never regarded my pictures as very much to be proud of, except in this, the craft, the style.