The only reason to make a million dollars in this business is to tell some fat producer to go to hell.

It is at least worth arguing that there is a modicum of the creative novelist in all of us, and that this absorption with how men get out of difficulties, single-handedly and alone if possible, is the stuff of which we weave the warp and woof of our own better dramatic imaginings.

[On the House Un-American Activities Committee] They'll nail anyone who ever scratched his ass during the National Anthem.

I don't approve of the John Waynes and the Gary Coopers saying "Shucks, I ain't no actor - I'm just a bridge builder or a gas station attendant." If they aren't actors, what the hell are they getting paid for? I have respect for my profession. I worked hard at it.

What's at the end of a million dollars? Zero, zero, zero... nothing. A circle with a hole in it.

Ain’t nothing a man can’t do if he believes in himself.

All you owe the public is a good performance.