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

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.

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

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.

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

Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.

She was an absolute genius as a comedic actress, with an extraordinary sense for comedic dialogue. It was a God-given gift.

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

I’m my biggest inspiration. And I say this in the most humble way. I’ve been through so much, just in my life.

I’ve been lucky enough that I can gather all sorts of experiences and find inspiration by traveling around and by spending time with people I admire.

Don’t make music for some vast, unseen audience or market or ratings share or even for something as tangible as money.

When you get a poem [in a public place], it happens to you so suddenly that you don’t have time to deploy your anti-poetry deflector shields that were installed in high school.

My daughter, I can’t give up because she’s watching and she’s here and she’s waiting for me to be an example. So, between her, myself, and my will, and me pushing myself, that’s my inspiration.

My manager said the next best inspiration to heartbreak is travel, and it’s true.

It is in the ordinances of the temple that we are placed under covenant to Him….[If] we will enter into our covenants without reservation or apology, the Lord will protect us. We will receive inspiration sufficient for the challenges of life.

The people at the record company had asked me if I could write a song about my life, my relationship with God, and where I’m from.