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.
— Howard Hawks
John Wayne represents more force, more power than anyone else on the screen.
You can't fix a bad script after you start shooting. The problems on the page only get bigger as they move to the big screen.
I have a theory that the only way you can be any good is if the camera likes you. If the camera doesn't like you, you are gone.
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.
A good movie is three good scenes and no bad scenes.
The western is the simplest form of drama - a gun, death.
I'm such a coward that unless I get a good writer, I don't want to make a picture.
I guarantee you that two directors that are any good can take the same story, change the name of the characters, change the name of the town, and make an entirely different picture.
Too many actors try to get too much out of scenes that they ought to be leaving alone, just doing them quickly and getting the hell out.
I made 'Rio Bravo' with John Wayne. It worked out pretty well and we both liked it, so a few years later we decided to make it again. Worked out pretty good that time, too.
There's action only if there is danger.
When you've got some talent, your job is to use it.
I try to tell my story as simply as possible, with the camera at eye level.
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'm a storyteller - that's the chief function of a director. And they're moving pictures, let's make 'em move!
