When people realize you're not the stuffed shirt they think you are it's such a relief and you have people who really like to be around you.

You asked me my favorite question: What happened and what did you learn from being under contract to MGM? And the answer is I know how to make movies. I understand how to do that. I've been doing that my whole life. It's just easier to raise the money yourself and then hire yourself. It's possible if you reduce your own budget a little.

I always felt people who took themselves seriously were kind of boring.

It's always amazing to me the idiosyncrasies people end up disliking others for.

To my mind, there are no unattractive women; only those who haven't been awakened by love . . . A woman is often like a strip of film-obliterated, insignificant-until a man puts the light behind her.

Entertainment was transportation. You were supposed to take somebody out of their seat and bring them back in. You’re not supposed to impose your values or your supposed knowledge to manipulate or control people. That was not your job. You were not supposed to use the bully pulpit of Hollywood to pound people with ideas. You’re there to entertain.

When you hear Treat's [ Williams] doing a movie, or you'd like to work with Treat again, you hope the script is good. And then you find out the script is good. You go and you do it for the fun of it. And you feel like you can be proud of something.