"Actors can be a terrible bore on the set, though I enjoy having dinner with them." "I wouldn't take the advice of a lot of so-called critics on how to shoot a close-up of a teapot." "Always cast against the part and it won't be boring." "When the great actor says the line, you can put scissors precisely at the point A and it's wonderful. When the star says the line, you can hold for four frames longer because something else happens." [On the Academy Awards] "If you have no hope of getting one, they're despised. But it you have, they're very important." "Film is a dramatized reality and it is the director's job to make it appear real... an audience should not be conscious of technique." "I think people remember pictures not dialogue. That's why I like pictures."