If you're going to make a musical, don't cartoon it from the play. Make it better than the play. Have a reason for making it sing.

Is it possible to be overzealous, to destroy that which you hope to save-so that nothing is left but emptiness.

When you lose the power to laugh, you lose your power to think straight.

Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it. Sometimes I think there's a man who sits behind a counter and says, "All right, you can have a telephone but you lose privacy and the charm of distance. Madam, you may vote but at a price. You lose the right to retreat behind the powder puff or your petticoat. Mister, you may conquer the air but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline."

Cynical? Thats my fascination. I do hateful things, for which people love me, And lovable things for which they hate me. I am a friend of enemies, the enemy of friends; I am admired for my detestability. I am both Poles and the Equator, with no Temperate Zones between.

You must not demand the failure of your peers, because the more good things that are around in film, in television, in theater - why the better it is for all of us.

I say that you cannot administer a wicked law impartially. You can only destroy. You can only punish. I warn you that a wicked law, like cholera, destroys everyone it touches - its upholders as well as its defiers.