I don't have too many friends. I have only a few people who I really love.

When Fred Astaire danced, everything in this world was perfect.

I think of myself as a meat-and-potatoes kind of director.

What we think about Paris is a part of how we feel about it. Our idea of Paris is our idea and we don't know that that's not necessarily the way it really is. It feels so real.

I can still dance a little, yes, but I like singing better. It's more fun.

What we all like in life, I think, is the challenge of making something... that is not easy to do.

Jean-Luc Godard said that cinema is the truth 24 frames a second. I think cinema is lies 24 frames a second.

You know, sound was still a fairly new thing when I came into movies. And the reason musicals happened is because of sound. They could put music in the picture! That's how it all began.

There was never any point in my life when I wasn't called Mr. Donen. I'm told my first words were, 'Call me Mr. Donen.' But I suspect that's apocryphal. My mother, Mrs. Donen, tended to exaggerate.

I started dancing when I saw Fred Astaire in 'Flying Down to Rio,' at approximately nine years old. Fred Astaire influenced me, more than anything, to be in 'show business.

My childhood wasn't very happy. It's a long, grim story about being a Jew in a small southern town.

...Okay... probably now you have read all my books up to now..., you have check out everything what I have and you are asking what more???Check out horror and try to understand it!

There is no such thing as a good tax.

We need to make some real fundamental change from the Constitution down in this country.

People understand that the economy is rigged. They're working longer hours for low wages. All new income and wealth, almost all, is going to the people on top.

... clothes sometimes gave one more of a lift than any philosophic comforting.

I don't suspect that in many instances the artists who are dedicated in that fashion to the progress of that community are as well protected by the community as might be necessary.

Anybody who asks for democracy to be introduced should respect the results of democracy.

Misfortune nobly born is good fortune.

Married people should be best friends; no relationship on earth needs friendship as much as marriage

Advice to beginning SF writers? Write a lot, finish what you write, and when it's done, keep sending it out for quite awhile.