If I couldn't read, I couldn't live.

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

I was making films about American society, and it is true that I never felt at home there, except perhaps when my wife and I lived on a farm in the San Fernando Valley. But I always wanted my characters to be more than cyphers for the failings of their world. And I never had to look too hard to find a part of myself in them

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.

Throughout my pictures I employ a lighting which is not naturalistic.

These happy endings all express the weak and sly promise that the world is not rotten and out of joint but meaningful and ultimately in excellent condition.

Rock Hudson was not an educated man, but that very beautiful body of his was putty in my hands.