If a story doesn't give you a hard-on in the first couple of scenes, throw it in the goddamned garbage.

I hate violence. That has never prevented me from using it in my films.

The creepy thing about battle is you always feel alone.

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.

We don't murder, we kill.... You don't murder animals, you kill them.

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, whether it's Brutus doing it to Caesar or Bob Stack doing it to Robert Ryan that defines what kind of drama it is.

If a story doesn't give you a hard-on in the first couple of scenes, throw it in the goddamned garbage.