“Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.”

Happiness is a small house, with a big kitchen.

In a good marriage each is the others better half.

I have a perfect cure for a sore throat: cut it.

I’m sure anyone who likes a good crime, provided it is not the victim.

I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s somebody nobody knows about.

Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms.

I’m not against the police; I’m just afraid of them.

I can’t read fiction without visualizing every scene. The result is it becomes a series of pictures rather than a book.

In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director.

Reality is something that none of us can stand, at any time.

A woman who spends all day washing and cooking and ironing doesn’t want to go to the movies to watch a film about a woman who spends all day washing and cooking and ironing.

If it’s a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on.

The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book – it makes a very poor doorstop.

One must never set up a murder. They must happen unexpectedly, as in life.

The picture’s over. Now I have to go and put it on film.

To make a great film you need three things – the script, the script and the script.

Drama rarely follows people who mind their business.

When searching for harmony in life one must never forget that in the drama of existence we are ourselves both actors and spectators.

I’ve never had a scandal, but I don’t know if that’s so much because I’m perfect, or because people aren’t caring enough yet. Give it some time. I’ll probably be very upset, but it’s a part of the gig.

Human beings suffer agonies, and their sad fates become legends; poets write verses about them and playwrights compose dramas, and the remembrance of past grief becomes a source of present pleasure – such is the strange alchemy of the spirit.

Drama is real life with all the boring parts cut out.

My old drama coach used to say, ‘Don’t just do something, stand there.’ Gary Cooper wasn’t afraid to do nothing.

My life is full of drama, and I don’t have time to worry about something as petty as what I look like.

He didn’t like drama and I was fucking Shakespeare.