If I thought a man had never committed a sin in his life, I don't think I'd want to talk with him. A man with flaws is more interesting.

Unfortunately, once I did learn to smoke, I couldn't stop. I escalated to two packs a day very quickly, and stayed that way for about ten years. When I decided to stop, I adopted the method that my father had used when he quit. He would carry a cigarette in his shirt pocket, and every time he felt like smoking, he would pull out the cigarette and confront it: "Who stronger? You? Me?" Always the answer was the same: "I stronger." Back the cigarette would go, until the next craving. It worked for him, and it worked for me.

I was living in a terrible time when people were being accused of being communists, and they attacked the movie industry, especially the writers. People couldn't work if they were on the blacklist. The studios banned them. It was the most onerous period in movie history. I don't think we have ever had a period so dark as that.

I have always been grateful that my Russian mother and father came to this country to give me a better chance, and I have had a better chance.

Fear is a terrible thing. It makes you do awful things.

Really a bad guy is more interesting, dramatically, than the good guy.

My mother once said, "A beggar must always give to another beggar that's worse off than he is." That has always stuck with me.