I can think of nothing that an audience won't understand. The only problem is to interest them; once they are interested, they understand anything in the world.

I don't want any description of me to be accurate; I want it to be flattering. I don't think people who have to sing for their supper ever like to be described truthfully - not in print anyway. We need to sell tickets, so we need good reviews.

Hollywood is a gold-plated suburb suitable for golfers, gardeners, assorted middlemen, and contented movies stars. I am none of these things.

I feel I have to protect myself against things. So I'm pretty careful to lose most of them.

I prefer the old masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.

n Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

Crooks aren't the worst people, just the stupidest. The fleas of the world.