Love is the magician that pulls man out of his own hat.
I know that a man who shows me his wealth is like the beggar who shows me his poverty; they are both looking for alms from me, the rich man for the alms of my envy, the poor man for the alms of my guilt.
There are millions of Americans who belong by nature in movie theaters as they belong at political rallies or in fortuneteller parlors and on the shoot-the-chutes. To these millions, the movies are a sort of boon - a gaudier version of religion.
Since my boyhood, I have sought always to please, but out of a kindness in me, never out of fear or respect for what was in others.
In Hollywood, a starlet is the name for any woman under thirty who is not actively employed in a brothel.
Hollywood held this double lure for me, tremendous sums of money for work that required no more effort than a game of pinochle.
I have lived in other cities but been inside of only one. I once wore all the windows of Chicago and all its doorways on a key ring. Salons, mansions, alleys, courtrooms, depots, factories, hotels, police cells, the lake front, the rooftops and the sidewalks were my haberdashery.
Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away.
Prejudice is a raft onto which the shipwrecked mind clambers and paddles to safety.
What better is there to sigh for than happiness, yesterday's or tomorrow's.
I discovered early in my movie work that a movie is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it. There are times when this distinction may be given to the writer or director. Most often it belongs to the producer.
A movie is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it.
In pre-movie days, the business of peddling lies about life was spotty and unorganized. It was carried on by the cheaper magazines, dime novels, the hinterland preachers and whooping politicians.
Chicago is a sort of journalistic Yellowstone Park, offering haven to a last herd of fantastic bravos.
