"The public is always right" "You are here to please me. Nothing else on earth matters." - to his crew "Give me any two pages of the Bible and I'll give you a picture." [on the set of "North West Mounted Police" (1940) when Tom Hightree's war whoops became too enthusiastic.] "Mr. Hightree, please - If you just moderate it a little. It's too harrowing. After all, this is only a massacre." "It was a theory that died very hard that the public would not stand for anyone dressed in clothes of another period....I got around this objection by staging what we call a vision. The poor working girl was dreaming of love and reading 'Tristan and Isolde.' The scene faded out, and scenes were depicted on the screen that the girl was supposed to be reading....Thus a bit of costume picture was put over on the man who bought the picture for his theater, and there was no protest from the public."