If there's anything to learn from the history of movies, it's that corruption leads to further corruption, not to innocence.

It's sometimes discouraging to see all of a director's movies, because there's so much repetition. The auteurists took this to be a sign of a director's artistry, that you could recognize his movies. But it can also be a sign that he's a hack.

Vulgarity is not as destructive to an artist as snobbery.

Great movies are rarely perfect movies.

The problem with a popular art form is that those who want something more are in a hopeless minority compared with the millions who are always seeing it for the first time, or for the reassurance and gratification of seeing the conventions fulfilled again.

When I see those ads with the quote 'You'll have to see this picture twice,' I know it's the kind of picture I don't want to see once.

Reality, like God and History, tends to direct people to wherever they want to go.