Mom was the greatest influence of my childhood. She wanted to save me from the vice, lust, and drinking that was all about me.

There is a great supply of amateur undertakers in show business.

I had always loved John Ford's pictures. And I came to love him, too, but I was frightened to death working for him. He used the shock treatment while directing me.

Among Negroes it is a bad omen when someone knocks on the door of a house where a person has died.

Somehow, the things my mother wanted to do, the release in evangelism she sought with such frenzy, were transferred to me.

Though I was a Catholic, I recognized that Protestant churches had something.

If I wanted pity, I got it because I'm illegitimate. And when I didn't want it I was mean and nasty.