"Love stories—yeah, there’s something about them. I cry when somebody does something good for somebody, not something horrible. I avoid all the horrible stuff. But to me, when a human being is sincerely generous, or kind or overly helpful to another human being, that’s when I tear up. I just love the idea of love."

"I love CGI when it’s done well. It may sound strange coming from me, because if you watch my stuff in movies it’s happening right in front of you, but I wish we had CGI back then to solve some problems. Getting rid of an edge or enhancing stuff, which is what they have today. I love it when it’s done well."

"I make sure that they photograph everything they do. And they have to have a portfolio to graduate. You know, there’s no formula for success out there, but what works is: learn how [to photograph], photograph everything you do and you put those photographs in front of people that can help hire you. That works."

"The cult surprised me. I didn't even realise it had been successful. I loved it, I had fun working on it and it was one of the first things I'd ever written. And it wasn't just that it wasn't a hit - it was a huge failure. No one saw it. I don't know how on earth it caught on years later."

"It would be interesting to have two movies - one The Monster Squad, and one The Monster Squad and they're 30 years apart and so are the kids; the characters have aged. As long as people understood that's what we're doing, I think that could be fun. That's a good idea"

"From an art perspective, I don't know how you get better than Beetlejuice. In terms of originality and a look, it's 100% unique."

"I'll always stand by the first Batman. Even for its imperfections, people will never know how hard that movie was to do. A lot of that still holds up."

"I'm gonna do four or five of these movies, and it's going to become my career. I'll have to keep expanding the bat suit, because I get fatter every year. I'll be bankrupt. I'll be out opening shopping malls, going from appearance to appearance in a cheesy van."

"Frankly, it's all set up now so that you're weirdly kind of safe. Once you get in those suits, they really know what to do with you. It was hard then; it ain't that hard now. Entertainment Weekly (2014)"

"I probably could've done this earlier, if I was more ambitious."

"Fred Astaire represented the aristocracy, I represented the proletariat."

"I really don't know why I clicked. I didn't want to be a dancer, I just did it to work my way through college. But I was always an athlete and gymnast, so it came naturally."

"In the 1930s, when I started, Martha Graham was the only dancer doing anything modern, but she did it all to classical music. I couldn't see myself doing Swan Lake every night, and I wanted to develop a truly American style. The only dancer in the movies at that time with any success was Fred Astaire, but he did very small, elegant steps in a top hat, white tie, and tails."

"It's all true. It's true I didn't want to be a dancer. What I really wanted to be was a shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Then at 14 I discovered girls, and began to study dancing diligently. At that time dancing was the only way you could put your arm around the girl. Dancing was courtship. Only later did I discover you dance joy. You dance love. You dance dreams. Of course, the Pittsburgh Pirates lost a hell of a shortstop."

"There is a thin line between passion and gas."

"Zsa Zsa Gabor not only worships at The Golden Calf, she insists on barbecuing it for lunch."

"I once said cynically of a politician, "He'll double-cross that bridge when he comes to it.""

"Ballet is the fairies' baseball."

"I'm a study of a man in chaos in search of frenzy."

"He never asks the orchestra to do anything which contradicts the players' feeling of what the music signifies or what the printed notes of the score actually mean in plain musical language. To his credit he does not pretend to omniscience. When a certain progression of programs with the Philharmonic decreed that he conduct the Brahms Fourth Symphony two seasons ago, he disavowed intensive rehearsals with the simple statement to the orchestra: "Gentlemen, you know the work better than I do." Both the compliment and the attitude endeared themselves so much to the orchestra that they literally forgot themselves in a mass effort to justify his statement—and, as one of those who heard the performance, I can testify that they delivered one of the most powerful and integrated interpretations of the score that New York has experienced in years."

"It's not a pretty face, I grant you. But underneath its flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character."

"There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line."

"This piano plays. Which is more than I can say for her."

"The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue."

"I don't drink liquor. I don't like it. It makes me feel good."

"Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you will find the real tinsel underneath."

"My last picture for Warners was Romance on the High Seas. It was Doris Day's first picture; that was before she became a virgin."

"An epigram is only a wisecrack that's played at Carnegie Hall."

"I heartily approve of her campaign to beautify America. It would be greatly improved if the First Family were kept out of sight."

"The difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is that the Democrats let the poor be corrupt, too."

"Oscar would have been here at the head table—but he was feeling well."

"When I was in my prime, I was an egomaniac and didn’t allow my wife to buy the best sardines–the King Oscars–which bear my name. I felt there should be only one king in my house."

"I was fond of Oscar, but there was something about our twin natures which made us exchange insults. I told him that I wanted to make a date with him every day so that I would know where he was and could avoid the place."

"Instant unconsciousness had been my greatest passion for ten years."

"Tell me, George, if you had it to do all over, would you fall in love with yourself again?"

"I rated the drug Demerol over sex as the ultimate pleasure at one time. Now I don’t have access to either."

"I have seizures of momentary sanity."

"I was on Information Please with him and afterward there was a party and idly Oscar sat down at the piano and began to play. I remember how the conversation hushed in the crowded room. The waiters stopped serving and stood, silently listening. Yet, on this TV show, he seems almost a buffoon, as if he is deliberately mocking himself, drawing a caricature of the old Levant."

"Apropos of nothing, I asked [Truman] Capote, “Are you for integration?” He said, “Yes, are you for integration?” I said, “I’m for disintegration… personal disintegration.”"

"As a rule I never read bad reviews about myself because my best friends invariably tell me about them."

"A psychiatrist once diagnosed my troubles as “an abdication of will.”"

"It certainly will be if you are still around."

"In the middle and late 50′s I was in hospitals constantly. I was committed every time I drew a breath or took an extra twelve pills–which never affected me much because I’m not suicidal."

"[Ira Gershwin] said that [P.G.] Wodehouse will address a letter, stamp it and throw it out of his third-story window onto the street trusting in the good nature of passerby to pick it up and mail it."

"The book should be a happy introduction to a character who, if he did not exist, could not be imagined."

"A symphonic conductor should reconcile himself to the realization that, regardless of his approach or temperament, the eventual result is the same — the orchestra will hate him."

"I would like to have been present, if I could have my choice of all moments in music history, when Stokowski suddenly became conscious of his beautiful hands. That must have been a moment. Like stout Cortez [sic] on a peak in Darien (I know it was Balboa) he saw before him a limitless expanse, a whole uncharted sea that might be subjected to his influence, free from the encumbrance of a baton."

"Incompatibility. And besides, I think she hated me."

"Once he makes up his mind, he's full of indecision."