The arts are not just instantaneous pleasure - if you don't like it, the artist is wrong. I belong to the generation which says if you don't like it, you don't understand and you ought to find out.

Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping.

The great actors are the luminous ones. They are the great conductors of the stage.

Fundamentally I feel that there is as much difference between the stage and the films as between a piano and a violin. Normally you can't become a virtuoso in both.

Is everybody happy? I want everybody to be happy. I know I'm happy.

[on Hollywood] It looks, it feels, as though it had been invented by a Sixth Avenue peepshow man.

[At age 76:] A good life is like a good play -- it has to have a satisfying and exciting third act.