A bachelor May thrive by observation on a little, A single life's no burthen: but to draw In yokes is chargeable, and will require A double maintenance.

You can speak well if your tongue can deliver the message of your heart.

Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art. The main thing about directing is: photograph the people's eyes.

I am... a mushroom; On whom the dew of heaven drops now and then.

I didn't show up at the ceremony to collect any of my first three Oscars. Once I went fishing, another time there was a war on, and on another occasion, I remember, I was suddenly taken drunk.

I like, as a director and a spectator, simple, direct, frank films. Nothing disgusts me more than snobbism, mannerism, technical gratuity... and, most of all, intellectualism.

When in doubt, make a western.

Who better than an Irishman can understand the Indians, while still being stirred by tales of the US cavalry?

Love is the tyrant of the heart; it darkens Reason, confounds discretion; deaf to Counsel It runs a headlong course to desperate madness.

To be quite blunt, I make pictures for money, to pay the rent.There are some great artists in the business. I am not one of them.

Tell us, pray, what devil This melancholy is, which can transform Men into monsters.

Today evolution of human intelligence has advanced us to the stage where most of us are too smart to invent new gods but are reluctant to give up the old ones.

Have Fun Storming the Castle!

Why does man need bread? To survive. But why survive if it is only to eat more bread? To live is more than just to sustain life - it is to enrich, and be enriched by, life.

The brainless serenity of charwomen and janitors working late at night came over us. In a messy world we were at least making our little corner clean.

Fathers. Mothers. With all their caring and attention. They will f--- you up, every time.

Don’t let the bad leg fool you, son. If you hurt my princess, I will be the nightmare you never see coming.

The Saints come, as human as a mouth, with a bag of God in their backs, like a hunchback, they come, they come marching in.

All those pseudo-Hollywood movies set nowhere, with everybody good looking and having great physique - that's not working any more.

Prayer for worldly goods is worse than fruitless, but prayer for strength of soul is that passion of the soul which catches the gift it seeks.

At all times it is better to have a method.