It's hard not to think of Jack Ford when you're making a Western. Hard not to think of him when you're making any picture.

I'm such a coward that unless I get a good writer, I don't want to make a picture.

If you want to make pictures and enjoy making them, you better go out and make something that a lot of people want to see. And then they'll turn you lose and let you make what you want. And then maybe you can do some of the things that you want to do. But as a beginner, you haven't got a chance.

I think girls who insult people are very attractive.

I get a little sick of these New Yorkers who want me to make some psychic thing, like 'The Left-Handed Gun.' They don't know anything about Western history.

I think words come between the spectator and the picture.