I don't need a critic to tell me I'm an actor. I make my own way. Nobody's my boss. Nobody's ever been my boss.

On a crowded bus in Israel, a mother was speaking to her son in Yiddish. An Israeli woman reprimanded her. "You should be speaking Hebrew. Why are you talking to him in Yiddish?" The mother answered, "I don't want he should forget he's a Jew."

I think the election of [Barack] Obama was a great step to prove to the world that we believe that all men were created equal. I think it will show that we have humility.

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

My kids never had the advantages I had. I was born poor.

When I made Spartacus during the McCarthy Era, we were losing our freedom. It was an awful, awful way. McCarthy saw Communists everywhere, in every level of government and they concentrated on Hollywood and especially on Hollywood writers.

Since my stroke, I have begun to see so many miracles all around me. I look out of the window in my room: verdant grass, silver-tipped oak leaves, tall palm trees gentle swaying as they reach to the sky, masses and masses of roses. All colors, so many shapes, exquisite fragrances.