We look for wine when we should be hunting bread.

My mother and my father were illiterate immigrants from Russia. When I was a child they were constantly amazed that I could go to a building and take a book on any subject. They couldn't believe this access to knowledge we have here in America. They couldn't believe that it was free.

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.

When I produced Spartacus, the writer was Dalton Trumbo, who spent a year in jail because he would not answer McCarthy's questions about other people. He submitted the picture under the false name of Sam Jackson.

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

Life is like a B-picture script! It is that corny. If I had my life story offered to me to film, I'd turn it down.

I know Italians and I like them. A lot of my father's best friends were Italians.