If something works for you, you continue to do it. I did a bunch of pictures for 20th Century Fox when Alan Ladd was over there, but I set the budget….

The artist and the multitude are natural enemies. They always will be, both ways. The artist is an enemy of the multitude, and the multitude is the e….

I insist that they do what they became actors to do. I want them to create something and not just hit marks and say words. So they all love that beca….

You will never see'Altman's Great Film of the Seventies: The Director's Cut' because you have never seen a film of mine that wasn't the director's cu….

People have asked me throughout the years which directors have influenced me. I don't know their names, because I was mostly influenced when I'd see ….

I never knew what I wanted, except that it was something I hadn't seen before..

Making a movie is like chipping away at a stone. You take a piece off here, you take a piece off there and when you're finished, you have a sculpture….

There was not a lot of dialogue. The titles were just to keep you up. It's the visual stimulation that hits the audience. That's the reason for film.….

Men make clothes for the women they'd like to be with or in most cases the women they'd like to be..

I've had it-the agencies, the winking, the networks, the ratings. Anyone who thinks TV is an art medium is crazy-it's an advertising medium..

Your own ego is the only trap that I think you can fall into..

Words don't tell you what people are thinking. Rarely do we use words to really tell. We use words to sell people or to convince people or to make th….

What is an ending? There's no such thing. Death is the only ending..

The minute you have more than one voice, you have more possibilities opening up. You have all the molecules in all of those bodies and their make up ….

Why should I keep doing things that I've done before?.

Happy endings are absolutely ludicrous, they're not true at all. We see the guy carry the girl across the threshold and everybody lives happily ever ….

I'll give you the same advice I give my children: Never take advice from anybody..

Maybe there's a chance to get back to grown-up films. Anything that uses humor and dramatic values to deal with human emotions and gets down to what ….

All of my films deal with the same thing: striving, socially and culturally, to stay alive..

I make no apologies for Popeye. Behind M*A*S*H, it's my biggest hit. It got maligned by the critics because it wasn't Superman. It wasn't about speci….

I was scared that no one would hire me. At that time, there was still a stigma attached to it. A big stigma. Actually, I think I was healthier after ….