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.

Love has more depth as you get older.

The only advantage I have found in being Jewish is that I can be openly anti-Semitic.

When you get to my age, you find that most of your dear friends are gone.

Now, why is it that most of us can talk openly about the illnesses of our bodies, but when it comes to our brain and illnesses of the mind we clam up and because we clam up, people with emotional disorders feel ashamed, stigmatized, and don't seek the help that can make the difference.

I'm glad they gave women the right to vote, but sometimes I'm sorry they have the right to smoke. Most women are messy about it, particularly about their lipstick. I don't mind wiping lipstick off myself, but I hate seeing it on cigarettes, napkins and coffee cups! I don't like women with all their beauty machinery showing-curlers, cold cream, mascara brushes. I'd even prefer to not see a woman touch up her lipstick, but I guess that's expecting too much.

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.