I've come to believe that everything worth achieving is beyond one's capacity - or seems so at first. The thing is to persist, not back off, fight your fight, pay your dues, and carry on. Effort is all; continue and you may get there despite everything.

The motion pictures I have made and the plays I have chosen to direct represent my convictions.

I've come to believe that everything worth achieving is beyond one's capacity - or seems so at first. The thing is to persist, not back off, fight your fight, pay your dues, and carry on. Effort is all; continue and you may get there despite everything.

I like directors who come on the set and create something that's a little dangerous, difficult or unusual.

Stylized acting and direction is to realistic acting and direction as poetry is to prose.

I will say nothing to an actor that cannot be translated into action.

For years after I resigned, I was still faithful to their way of thinking. But not in the American Communists.