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.

The creepy thing about battle is you always feel alone.

Being a hooker does not mean being evil. The same with a pick-pocket, or even a thief. You do what you do out of necessity.

Mark Twain didn't psychoanalyze Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer. Dickens didn't put Oliver Twist on the couch because he was hungry! Good copy comes out of people, Johnny, not out of a lot of explanatory medical terms.

Film is a battleground.

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