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.

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

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

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.

I think the great artists (..) have always thought with the heart.

A director in Hollywood in my time couldn't do what he wanted to do.

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.