Sydney Pollack

No country could claim to be civilized if its legal system weren't available to everyone in it.

I'm as much a victim of the romantic myth of 'getting away' as anyone else. My head tells me it's myth, but I don't want to believe it is.

In terms of level of difficulty, it would go comedy, thriller, and then romantic drama.

I remembered myself as an unpopular and rather sad kid.

I think it's a terrible shame that politics has become show business.

You can't trust your memory. You change it to suit yourself.

Well, the wonderful thing about making movies, oddly enough, is that they're sort of highly motivated graduate studies in one or another field.

When you make a film you usually make a film about an idea.

Every single art form is involved in film, in a way.

I mean, certainly writing, painting, photography, dance, architecture, there is an aspect of almost every art form that is useful and that merges into film in some way.

If I want to make people moved or cry in a film, I figure out what the room looks like, what the people are wearing, what time of day it is, what the light is, how to photograph it, where to put the camera. It involves optics and costume design and set design and architecture.

What makes architecture extraordinary is that you're looking at the building, but your peripheral vision is also seeing how it fits within a space. And it's seeing more than one part of the building at one time.

I do have a responsibility, but I would make the most boring films in the world if I woke up every morning worrying about my social responsibility.

If you list the qualities that we consider feminine, they are patience, understanding, empathy, supportiveness, a desire to nurture. Our culture tells us those are feminine traits, but they're really just human.

My strength is with actors. I think I'm good at working with them to get the best performances, at seeing what it is that they have and that the story needs.

The very reasons sometimes that you make a film are the reasons for its failure.

If I'm lucky, in my wildest dreams I can make a picture every three years.