John Huston

A work of art doesn't dare you to realize it. It germinates and gestates by itself.

It's not color, it's like pouring 40 tablespoons of sugar water over a roast.

Hollywood has always been a cage... a cage to catch our dreams.

The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on. And one day you die. That is all there is to it.

I prefer to think that God is not dead, just drunk.

You walk through a series of arches, so to speak, and then, presently, at the end of a corridor, a door opens and you see backward through time, and you feel the flow of time, and realize you are only part of a great nameless procession.

After all, crime is only a left-handed form of human endeavor.

What to do when inspiration doesn't come; be careful not to spook, get the wind up, force things into position. You must wait around until the idea comes.

I don't try to guess what a million people will like. It's hard enough to know what I like.