I don't think I had a bad influence on anybody. I made people feel better about themselves.

Wealth is walking into any bookshop and buying any book you want without looking at the price tag.

New York was the last place that my movies caught on. I didn't make underground movies in New York, and in the 1960s, they were very snobby about that, because the whole scene was here.

"How could you think of such awful things?" liberal critics always ask. "How else could I possibly amuse myself?" I always wonder.

To use bad taste, you have to know the rules of good taste. I've always thanked my mother for that. She taught how to eat with proper table manners and all that stuff, to the point of rebellion. But I couldn't have rebelled from it if I didn't know it.

I have spoken, and I was understood. It's not like I'm a tragic person who wasn't understood. All those books are in print, all those movies are still out there, the audience gets younger. So I don't have that "I've got to do one thing before I die." I did it.

To me, beauty is looks you can never forget. A face should jolt, not soothe.