You walk through a series of arches, so to speak, and then, presently, at the end of a corridor, a door opens and you see backward through time, and you feel the flow of time, and realize you are only part of a great nameless procession.

There is a wilful lemming-like persistance in remaking past successes time after time. They can't make them as good as they are in our memories, but they go on doing them and each time it's a disaster. Why don't we remake some of our bad pictures - I'd love another shot at 'Roots of Heaven' - and make them good?

Marilyn was one step from oblivion when I directed her in The Asphalt Jungle. I remember she impressed me more off the screen than on…there was something touching and appealing about her.

I relieve myself from the rigours of directing by casting the movie correctly.

Whenever something is convenient or was modified after 1970, you probably shouldn't use it as root.

Each picture with its particular environment and unique personal relationships is a world unto itself - separate and distinct. Picture makers lead dozens of lives - a life for each picture. And, by the same token, they perish a little when each picture is finished and that world comes to an end. In this respect it is a melancholy occupation.

Most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and the right place they're capable of anything.