So slowly in my mind formed the idea of melodrama, a form I found to perfection in American pictures. They were naive, they were that something completely different. They were completely Art-less.

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.

There is a wonderful expression: seeing through a glass darkly. Everything, even life, is inevitably removed from you. You can't reach, or touch, the real. You just see reflections

You have to think with the heart.

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

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

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