I've always had trouble with authority.

No, you're either born a writer, a storyteller, or you're not.

I became a loner. I became a mountain man. A lot of those things are very good qualities and they help you do your work, help you be singular and keep the artistic integrity of your work intact, but they don't make it very easy to live your life.

I've always been able to survive by writing, though.

There is a certain kind of respect for authenticity today that there wasn't back in the days when they did 'Cleopatra,' where everything looked like a giant motel. People want to have it be authentic in the look, and authentic in the way people behave.

I find that screenwriting is at best kind of a hackwork in some ways.

I've always had trouble with authority.

Yeah, I think that's it... It's like Jesse James. He became really popular because he lasted so long. You know, there is some degree of truth to the fact that time will dignify anything, too.

Most artists think they're frauds anyway.

Egotism is not a good quality. It's not something to be admired or even tolerated. It wouldn't be tolerated in a field commander and it shouldn't be tolerated in a movie director.

Yeah, there's absolutely. I mean, remember when The Searchers came out, it was a relatively big hit for a Western, and I think it made 5 million bucks - I don't even think it made that.

I felt that the Star Wars series became very pretentious as time went on. Just heavy and leaden.

I suppose when I started out I would have liked to have been the darling of critics or something, but everybody wants to be loved and admired.

I think Francis at half form is better than anybody else by 50%, you know? I think it's just that he has never... he has a late pick of the things that are ambitious enough for him.

You never know when you're going to be considered un-hip... The people that really pass judgment on you really have nothing to do with what you do, usually.

Everybody's a filmmaker today.

Most of the good executives do pretty well. Because to be a good executive you have to be strong, and you have to have a simple attribute that people have forgotten about - courage.

Writing requires a great deal of skill, just like painting does. People don't want to learn those skills.

I hardly said a word to my wife until I said 'yes' to divorce.

Also, they don't understand - writing is language. The use of language. The language to create image, the language to create drama. It requires a skill of learning how to use language.

'm a general, I do something. I go out and fight wars and win them.

A lot of directors don't know what they want to do. Every director I've seen that was a good director that I've admired knew exactly what he wanted to do. They didn't sit there and think about it.

Matter of fact, the style that people use today, I invented in a way.

I also thought of myself as the Sonny Barger of the film industry.

A lot of people thought of me as a threat to Western civilization.

You know, I find it very strange when movies that I made that were just excoriated - I mean that I was just vilified for - are now looked at as classics.

The filmmakers always have a great level of control.

Films are always pretentious. There's nothing more pretentious than a filmmaker.

I mean, the old film critics just excoriated me.

I suppose when I started out I would have liked to have been the darling of critics or something but everybody wants to be loved and admired.

Films are always pretentious. Theres nothing more pretentious than a filmmaker.

The burnt odor in Washington is from the disintegrating authority of the governing classes.

If you look to lead, invest at least 40% of your time managing yourself - your ethics, character, principles, purpose, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least 30% managing those with authority over you, and 15% managing your peers.

All wars come to an end, at least temporarily. But the authority acquired by the state hangs on; political power never abdicates.

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.

I call religion a natural authority, but it has usually been conceived as a supernatural authority.

But in our age the appeal to authority is weak, and I am of my age.

And revolutions always mean the breakdown of old authority.

In revolutions authority remains with the greatest scoundrels.

We all agree that we've got to bring these terrorists to justice and to make sure that they're never allowed to perpetrate such an evil act as they did. And so all of us are dealing with that. We know that the President has the authority to go to war under the War Powers Act.

The faith that stands on authority is not faith.

As a result of my study, I came to the conclusion that a common supreme authority was undesirable.

Universal suffrage should rest upon universal education. To this end, liberal and permanent provision should be made for the support of free schools by the State governments, and, if need be, supplemented by legitimate aid from national authority.

The dead and past stories that I have told again in divers fashions, are not set down without authority.

I had learned many years ago in private business never to take responsibility without adequate authority; and the new Secretary of Defense, as budgets were sharply cut, quickly found that out.

The whole basis of the Constitution was a restriction of power, and the whole basis of the federalist system was that there was not one sovereign centralized power from which all authority flows.

God is the King. In him exists all legal authority.

Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere as long as the policy you've decided upon is being carried out.

I prize the conditions under which I have lived because they have permitted me to choose my opportunities, to inquire into such matters as interested me, and to publish what I believed to be true, uncontrolled by any central authority.