Nothing has ever been invented that is more cumbersome to make than the motion picture.
Shadow is mystery and light is clarity. Shadow conceals--light
reveals. To know what to reveal and what to conceal and in what degrees
to do this is all there is to art.
[on the director's role] . . . the determining influence, and the only
influence, despotically exercised or not, which accounts for the worth
of what is seen on the screen.
The finished product is not finished when the actor is. The work is completed by a pair of shears.
The only way to succeed is to make people hate you. That way they remember you.
I care nothing about the story, only how it is photographed and presented.
[on Gary Cooper] One of the nicest human beings I have ever met.