The best way to make friends with an audience is to make them laugh. You don't get people to laugh unless they surrender - surrender their defenses, their hostilities. And once you make an audience laugh, they're with you. And they listen to you if you've got something to say. I have a theory that if you can make them laugh, they're your friends.

There's music in my films but you seldom hear it. Very early I got the idea that the important things in films were people - the actors. They are the intermediary between the director and the audience. They make direct contact. People to people communication.

In these days of wars and rumors of wars - haven't you ever dreamed of a place where there was peace and security, where living was not a struggle but a lasting delight?

I think the human spirit is a real powerful spirit. It has no limits and it has no ends. And I hate to see it put in any kind of box - pink or green.

I have a feeling that demonstrations don't accomplish anything. That they become fads. I also feel that demonstrations wouldn't go on unless there is a TV camera. That part of it all is performance for the media. I didn't know whether they are completely honest.

Man must be able to recover, to win out, triumph over adversity. And I don't mean just the little adversity like paying his room rent or something. But those deep, deep human adversities because something he has faith in has turned to ashes. Where someone he loves turns out to be just another joke. You get to the point of suicide. But you can bounce back - they can't completely destroy you.

The best pictures are yet to be made.