The man with the real sense of humor is the man who can put himself in the spectator's place and laugh at his own misfortune.

Anyone in the humor business isn't thinking clearly if he doesn't surround himself with idea people. Otherwise you settle for mediocrity - or you burn yourself out.

Whatever else an American believes or disbelieves about himself he is absolutely sure he has a sense of humor.

A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself. He can live without hope without friends without books even without music as long as he can listen to his own thoughts.

I'm always amazed when a pitcher becomes angry at a hitter for hitting a home run off him. When I strike out I don't get angry at the pitcher I get angry at myself. I would think that if a pitcher threw up a home run ball he should be angry at himself.

A man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher but he who goes from country to country guided by the blind impulse of curiosity is a vagabond.

No man can call himself liberal or radical or even a conservative advocate of fair play if his work depends in any way on the unpaid or underpaid labor of women at home or in the office.

Film is the manipulative medium par excellence. When you think back on the history of film and the 20th century you see the propaganda that's been made. So there are moral demands on the director to treat the spectators as seriously as he or she takes himself and not to see them merely as victims that can be manipulated to whatever ends they have.

Our liberal New York/Washington-based media would never in a million years put Liberal Godfather Ted Kennedy on the spot about his clan's bad behavior to whose lurid history he himself has contributed so much.

A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic a mere working mason if he possesses some knowledge of these he may venture to call himself an architect.