My childhood wasn't very happy. It's a long, grim story about being a Jew in a small southern town.

You see, it took me so long, it was such a struggle, to move myself out of musicals - because I had had a success, nobody wanted to allow me to direct a non-musical picture. It was so hard. And the only way I could get it going was to become a producer myself.

What we all like in life, I think, is the challenge of making something... that is not easy to do.

It was very hard to make 'Funny Face' in Paris because making movies is difficult and making a movie in a city that was glorious, that was unique and surprising, to get it, to put it on film you have to make choices and reject a lot of things so you're always wondering: "am I doing it right?"

I think of myself as a meat-and-potatoes kind of director.

I don't have too many friends. I have only a few people who I really love.

You know, sound was still a fairly new thing when I came into movies. And the reason musicals happened is because of sound. They could put music in the picture! That's how it all began.