Jewish introspection and Jewish humor is a way of surviving . . . if you're not handsome and you're not athletic and you're not rich, there's still one last hope with girls, which is being funny.

Yes. The whole point about laughter is it's like mercury: you can't catch it, you can't catch what motivates it - that's why it's funny.

I was just trying to make a nice little movie... It wasn't until I saw it all put together that I realized this was something remarkable.

The only safe thing is to take a chance. Play safe and you are dead. Taking risks is the essence of good work, and the difference between safe and bold can only be defined by yourself since no one else knows for what you are hoping when you embark on anything.

There’s nothing better than discovering, to your own astonishment, what you’re meant to do. It’s like falling in love.

The unconscious is our best collaborator.

I came to love silence, because it's so rare, and it's now my favorite aural condition.

It's not a filmmaker's job to explain his technique but to tell his story the best way he can.

If you want to be a legend, God help you, it's so easy. You just do one thing. You can be the master of suspense, say. But if you want to be as invisible as is practical, then it's fun to do a lot of different things.

It's the hardest thing on earth to like yourself, and then when you do, it's a catastrophe. I mean, the people I know who like themselves - I don't want to see them!

Being with an insanely jealous person is like being in the room with a dead mammoth.

A movie is like a person. Either you trust it or you don't.

The only safe thing in filmmaking is to take a chance.

All the theories that acting is reacting to imaginary circumstances as though they are real, and directing is turning psychology into behavior, those are all stabs at something that can't be taught. All the great actors can't talk about what they do, and they don't want to begin to talk about it. They just do it.

Nerves provide me with energy... It's when I don't have them, when I feel at ease, that's when I get worried.