[about Norma Talmadge's popularity with audiences] You could take
1000 feet of Norma Talmadge in a chair, and her fans would flock to see
it.
[1970, on the bulldozing of the sets on the back lot of bankrupt MGM, including the huge gateway from The Good Earth (1937)] Now this could make you cry.
I never felt I was a great director. I never felt I was quite good enough. I was not unique enough--I was too straightforward. I never felt brilliant like [Ernst Lubitsch]. I was always wishing I could do things more cleverly, more subtly.
[William C. de Mille] did a great deal for me. He gave me a sense of peace. My panic disappeared with his confident attitude.
I went to school on The Guardsman (1931). What I learned from this experience--by being with the Lunts for several weeks--I couldn't have picked up in a lifetime.