From the time she was born, until she was fifteen, I didn't know where I left off and she began. We were joined at the hip or the heart or the brain.

Shared laughter creates a bond of friendship.

I've been married to one Marxist and one Fascist, and neither one would take the garbage out.

You dont need a love scene to show love.

What goes on between a father and a son, which is usually such a private matter, is that they are able to be honest with each other, and be honest with me, as a director. Its just remarkable.

If you are a star in Hollywood then you are always a star in your eyes, but not always in the eyes of new directors for whom your great performances are always fading into the past.

Its a very good feeling to be around a man who thinks women are juicy.

This is our lives. The way to give it dignity is to tell the truth.

I know what you go through when you learn someone close to you has died.

I don't think I fit the Marilyn Maxwell mode.

When I became a director, I wanted to convince a very reluctant Sidney into allowing me to go on the journey of his life. Sidney had gone ahead of every other African American actor.

Western funerals: black hearses, and black horses, and fast-fading flowers. Why should black be the colour of death? Why not the colours of a sunset?

Joy is our native conditionLet go all non-joy and there is joy

When you go through a negative situation, don't think about it. Make it positive.

Getting an idea for a book is not the problem, but you need 300 ideas - an idea a page.

Leadership is the ability of a single individual through his or her actions to motivate others to higher levels of achievement.

You rarely achieve finality. If you did, life would be over, but as you strive new visions open before you, new possibilities for the satisfaction of living.

Nature is your friend; it helps you to win. Your enemy will have unnatural movement, therefore you will be able to know what he is going to do before he does it.

It is the darling delusion of mankind that the world is progressive in religion, toleration, freedom, as it is progressive in machinery.

I felt better being in the background. That's the way I like it.

You ought to make every effort to free yourselves even from venial sin, and to do what is most perfect.