William Wyler

“Great pictures can't be entirely fictitious.”

“Pictures that will live on for years, like 'The Birth of a Nation' and 'Gone With the Wind,' had great historical events in the background.”

“I'm here to make good pictures. If I don't see it, I won't touch it. I may not make a good picture, but I still gotta believe in it!”

“The war was an escape to reality... The only thing that mattered were human relationships; not money, not position, not even family... Only relationships with people who might be dead tomorr...”

“The good ones push their luck to the limit - like Laurence Oliver. As actor and director, he will go just as far as he can.”

“A director must push his actors to the utmost limit to get everything possible out of each scene - without being corny or sentimental or going overboard.”

“There's only one prima donna in my pictures, and that's me!”

“I'm delighted that 'The Sound of Music' is doing so well. Of course, it's an infallible piece of material. Even when second- and third-rate road companies were doing the play, they did enorm...”

“It looked like 'The Sound of Music' would even surpass 'Ben Hur,' and I thought it would be unfair for me to have done both. I thought I'd leave something for somebody else. That's a quip.”

“Look at 'Marienbad' honestly. What is it? It is just another talking radio show with pictures. Nobody acts. People stand around while the author talks about the woodwork.”