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.

Life is in color, but black and white is more realistic.

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

A woman is just a script, but a cigar is a motion picture.

We'll build a democracy here, even if it's with Nazi bricks.

When you're in the battlefield, survival is all there is.

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