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

The silent pictures were the purest form of cinema.

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.

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.

You have to make that judgement yourself, and that’s partly where the casting director is so good. It was that blend that we were looking for.

And we’re always talking to the directors about that. It’s a big challenge to find people that can do it.

You really have to bring your game and know what you want to do.

On a simple level, you need directors who are good at action and can choreograph an action scene

Somebody said that I’m a bit like a sponge, grabbing things here and there, soaking stuff up. [As a director] you have to be, really.

I began stealing a lot of ideas from other directors I had worked with.

And I don’t think Director Comey ever adequately explained why he treated the Clinton investigation one way and the Trump investigation another.

It was an echo of Director Comey’s testimony that Trump showed no curiosity, no interest, no concern over the Russia hack.