“If you’re going to tell people the truth, be funny or they’ll kill you.”

Shoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award.

I just always think, ‘Do I like it?’ And if I like it, maybe other people will come and like it too.

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.

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.

Yoga allows you to rediscover a sense of wholeness in your life.

It is through the alignment of the body that I discovered the alignment of my mind, self, and intelligence.

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

When you see a mistake in somebody else, try to find if you are making the same mistake.

Charlie Christian showed me a lot, and was a great help, but even then, I realised that if I was going to make it, it was no use copying Charlie

You go through big chunks of time where you’re just thinking, ‘this is impossible – oh,this is impossible’. And then you just keep going and keep going, and you sort of do the impossible.

Do not aim low, you will miss the mark. Aim high and you will be on a threshold of bliss.

Do not stop trying just because perfection eludes you.