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

A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.

I worry a lot about taking care of my dependents, all those perfectly ordinary middle-class preoccupations.

In common with all Protestant or Jewish cultures, America was developed on the idea that your word is your bond. Otherwise, the frontier could never have been opened, 'cause it was lawless. A man's word had to mean something.

Criticism is the essence of creation.

Almost all serious stories in the world are stories of failure with a death in it. But there is more lost paradise in them than defeat.