“Jerry: Oh, you don’t understand, Osgood! Ehhhh… I’m a man. Osgood: Well, nobody’s perfect.”

One’s too many and a hundred’s not enough.

After so many drive-in waitresses becoming movie stars, there has been this real drought, when along come class; somebody who actually went to school, can spell, maybe even plays the piano.

The best director is the one you don’t see.

She may be a wispy, thin little thing, but when you see that girl, you know you’re really in the presence of something. In that league there’s only ever been Garbo, and the other Hepburn, and maybe Bergman. It’s a rare quality, but boy, do you know when you’ve found it.

Well, nobody’s perfect.

I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.

We’re making a picture for middle-class people, the people that you see on the subway, or the people that you see in a restaurant. Just normal people.

I’m delighted with it, because it used to be that films were the lowest form of art. Now we’ve got something to look down on.

You know, that stuff about pink elephants, that’s the bunk. It’s little animals. Little tiny turkeys in straw hats. Midget monkeys coming through the keyholes.

I hate that word. It’s return–a return to the millions of people who’ve never forgiven me for deserting the screen.

I have never met anyone as utterly mean as Marilyn Monroe. Nor as utterly fabulous on the screen, and that includes Garbo.

The forest of Compiegne. Look at it. Like a kind grandmother dozing in her rocking chair. Old trees practicing curtsies in the wind because they still think Louis XIV is king.

God save me from myself.

The only pictures worth making are the ones that are playing with fire.

You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning.

The Austrians are brilliant people. They made the world believe that Hitler was a German and Beethoven an Austrian.

Everything is as it should be. God’s design is perfect.

I have the perfect simplified tax form for government. Why don’t they just print our money with a return address on it?

Female artists are the perfect example of a creator: They know how to make life and art with their bodies. Life comes from their bodies, so on a very basic level, they have more to write about.

Christianity is the only true and perfect religion; and… in proportion as mankind adopt its principles and obey its precepts, they will be wise and happy.

None of us are going to have perfect lives. Our own vision of what we think is good maybe different from what He [God] thinks. And we forget that. We think we know what’s best and we don’t.

God has this…hobby. He creates perfection. This world is not perfect. We have to learn to separate illusions from reality.

My worst moments as a parent have been much like my greatest moments as a parent: the product of complete and perfect accident.

I love ‘Goodfellas’ because it’s a great movie – it’s funny and there is action at perfect points. I just think Martin Scorsese makes everyone look really cool.