Heroes? Don't believe in them.

We got a right to climb out of the sewer and live like other people. We could start from scratch. Make every minute count twice for the one we lost.

Ninety-five per cent of films are born of frustration, of self despair, of ambition for survival, for money, for fattening bank accounts. Five per cent, maybe less, are made because a man has an idea, an idea which he must express.

When you're at the end of your rope, all you have to do is make one foot move out in front of the other. Just take the next step. That's all there is to it

We have too many intellectuals who are afraid to use the pistol of common sense

Movement should be a counter, whether in action scenes or dialogue or whatever. It counters where your eye is going. This style thing, for me it's all fitted to the action, to the script, to the characters.

When I was making these damned pictures, I never knew about film noir. If you had asked me about it then, I probably would have pointed to something like Bill Wellman's The Ox Bow Incident, the best Western I ever saw and very much in the style of film noir I don't care if it's a mystery story, a Western, or the story of Julius Caesar. To me it's the emotion, the lies, the double-cross that defines what kind of drama it is.