I'm always stunned when I find out people like Roosevelt and Tolstoy weren't Jewish. How could I love them so much?

I was a soldier in WWII. The last couple of months of the war I was actually in combat.

I know how to make it a great musical. I've got to. It's like I've got to see it on stage.

My God, I'd love to smash into the casket of Dostoyevsky, grab that bony hand and scream at the remains, 'Well done, you god-damn genius.'

Creative people should always be striving, they should always be hungry, they should be looking for the next place to go.

I have been lucky that some critics joined the mob in loving something I've done, or in appreciating it. I've been lucky. But most of the critics don't like what the people like. I think they have a very strange job, and they are meant to criticize.

Making a movie is like making an ocean voyage, and the script is your ship.