I've never done anything half-heartedly; it's a disservice to me and the audience if I do it half-heartedly.

I was being brought up on peasant stories; my mother came from Europe and she'd been a peasant and that was the area where the Frankensteins and the Draculas came from and it was entertainment for the people. Nobody had TV, and that was the way peasants would entertain themselves, by telling these stories.

I get a lot of comics, and I can look at a comic and tell immediately whether I'll enjoy it or not. There are elements in the stories that I have no rapport with. I see dirty language, I see sleazy backgrounds; I see it reflected in the movies, the movies are comics to me. And I don't see a sleazy world. I see hope. I see a positive world.

The average politician was crooked. That was my ambition, to be a crooked politician. I'd see them in these restaurants, and they'd all hold these conferences. I'd see politicians who were supposed to be on opposite sides of issues all together at one table.

I'm not the sort of fellow who does the same thing all the time. I began using a lot of science fiction apparatus. I came out with the atom bomb two years before it was actually used because I read in the paper that a fellow named Nicola Tesla was working on the atom bomb.

You fought fair. If the other guy wants to fight and you knocked him out, you did your best for him. You didn't want to hurt him any more.

The people who worked in comics were terrific guys. I had a good association with them, and I enjoyed comics for that very reason.