When Fred Astaire danced, everything in this world was perfect.

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

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?"

What we think about Paris is a part of how we feel about it. Our idea of Paris is our idea and we don't know that that's not necessarily the way it really is. It feels so real.

The funniest thing is not who influenced me positively, but who influenced me negatively. I had such an aversion to what Busby Berkeley did; in my early formative years, I thought it was terrible. Now, I think it's wonderful. But then, I wanted to do anything but what Busby Berkeley did.

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

There was never any point in my life when I wasn't called Mr. Donen. I'm told my first words were, 'Call me Mr. Donen.' But I suspect that's apocryphal. My mother, Mrs. Donen, tended to exaggerate.