There is no advantage getting older. You don't get smarter, you don't get wiser, you don't get more mellow, you don't get more kindly, nothing good happens. Your back hurts more, you get more indigestion, your eyesight isn't as good, you need a hearing aid. It's a bad business getting old and I would advise you not to do it if you can avoid it. It doesn't have a romantic quality.

For some reason I've always had an irrational love for New York. There's no reason that you would necessarily like it on paper. It's very expensive.

God, you Jews are truly exotic." Exotic? She should only know the Greenblatts. Or Mr. and Mrs. Milton Sharpstein, my father's friends. Or for that matter, my cousin Tovah. Exotic? I mean, they're nice, but hardly exotic with their endless bickering over the best way to combat indigestion or how far back to sit from the television set.

I always thought that as long as man is mortal, he will never be relaxed.

When I was a young man, my friends and I and all of us in New York were very influenced by French cinema. French cinema played an enormous influence on those of us who wanted to be filmmakers.

No matter what the shrinks, or the pundits, or the self-help books tell you, when it comes to love, it's luck.

It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry a tune.