“If the United States is to produce a nation of investors-as we must if we are to gain financial world-leadership-it is imperative that boards of directors be so constituted as to adequately represent the interests and inspire the complete confidence of investors of moderate substance.”

Diamonds are only lumps of coal that stuck to their jobs.

Whimpering never kept a leaking vessel from foundering. Vigorously manning the pumps has. Get busy with your head and hands, not your chin.

If a pig could pray, it would pray for swill. What do you pray for?

The fellow who isn’t fired with enthusiasm is apt to be fired.

There’s no such thing as a self-made man. I’ve had much help and have found that if you are willing to work, many people are willing to help you.

Many a man thinks he is patient when, in reality, he is indifferent.

Don’t forget until too late that the business of life is not business but living.

The man of fixed ingrained principles who has mapped out a straight course, and has the courage and self-control to adhere to it, does not find life complex. Complexities are all of our own making.

Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion.

The most profitless things to manufacture are excuses.

We must learn that to enjoy happiness we must conscientiously and continuously seek to spread happiness. Selfishness is suicidal to happiness.

No man can fight his way to the top and stay at the top without exercising the fullest measure of grit, courage, determination, resolution.

Honesty is the cornerstone of character.

Our future and our fate lie in our wills more than in our hands, for our hands are but the instruments of our wills.

The man who has done his level best… is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.

The bell of public opinion is today making the Morgan-Rockefeller-Vanderbilt class jump. Nor are the strongest of our corporations immune. The railroads have had to jump pretty lively, and certain gigantic industrial combinations are also being put through their paces.

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

And I think being a good director is being able to be completely tyrannical and you?ve got to be an absolute dictator while at the same time, you have to listen and see everything because it can all change on a dime.

I have great respect for directors who know what they’re doing.

I’d like [Santa Claus] to give Wes Anderson, the director, enough money in his next budget for an aerial shot – just a little copter shot. He really wanted this one helicopter shot, and Disney wouldn’t give him the money. Just wouldn’t give him the money.

When you trust your director completely, then you can relax, be spontaneous, be malleable.

My height can be a problem. A lot of directors and photographers are sometimes not happy because I’m pretty tall and especially if I work with short actors the difference can be pretty massive.

A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.

Whatever talent I had, I’m sure it helped that my parents were in the business and that I grew up around actors, comedians and directors.