[on his marriage to Ethel Merman]: Biggest mistake of my life. I thought I was marrying Rosemary Clooney.

Spencer Tracy was the first actor I`ve seen who could just look down into the dirt and command a scene. He played a set-up with Robert Ryan that way. He`s looking down at the road and then he looks at Ryan at just the precise, right minute. I tell you, Rob could`ve stood on his head and zipped open his fly and the scene would`ve still been Mr Tracy`s.

I hate hippies and dopeheads. Just hate them. I`m glad we sent the men off to war. They came back with a sense of responsibility and respect. We should have grabbed the women, given them a bath, put a chastity belt on them, and put them in secretary school.

[On Womens Rights]: The tried it the wrong way. You can`t expect anyone to take you seriously if you burn your undies and tell me I`m a pig. That`s why it failed. Too many ugly broads telling me that they don`t want to sleep with me. Who wanted you anyway?

Everything I do has a moral to it. Yes, I`ve been in films that have had shootings. I made The Wild Bunch (1969), which was the beginning of the splattering of blood and everything else. But there was a moral behind it. The moral was that, by golly, bad guys got it. That was it. Yeah.

Robert Ryan was a craftsman from start to finish. He was an actor first, a star second.

I like my women a little big. Natural. Now, they shave this and wax that. It`s not right. I love natural women. Big women. This trend in women has to go. Bulomia, anorexia. That`s just wrong. You know what will cure that? My special sticky buns. One lick of my sticky buns and your appetite will come right back.

Where can we find the great actors we had yesteryear, guys like Spencer Tracy and Gary Cooper and Edward G. Robinson? You know, I was talking to Lee Marvin the other day and we agreed that we were the last of a breed. We`re the last who had the opportunity of working with these fine actors. I feel very humble. It makes me feel that I`ve got to try that bit harder.

[On drugs]: No, I`ve never done anything. At least, not to my knowledge. I once took a bunch of goofballs by accident. They looked like candy. They were in a little bowl at a party. I grabbed a hand full and went to town. That was some New Years Eve. I didn`t have a coherent thought till February.

[on his feud with Mickey Rooney]: I`ve got the Oscar, he`s got a therapist. Checkmate.

The trick is not to become somebody else. You become somebody else when you`re in front of a camera or when you`re on stage. There are some people who carry it all the time. That, to me, is not acting. What you`ve gotta do is find out what the writer wrote about and put it into your mind. This is acting. Not going out and researching what the writer has already written. This is crazy!

I didn`t see it and I don`t care to see it ... If John Wayne were alive, he`d be rolling over in his grave. - On Brokeback Mountain (2005)

[On his $5,000 salary for playing the eponymous lead in Marty (1955), which won him a Best Actor Oscar] "...I would have done it for nothing."

Ever since they opened the floodgates with Clark Gable saying, `Frankly, my dear, I don`t give a damn,` somebody`s ears pricked up and said, `Oh boy, here we go!`. Writers used to make such wonderful pictures without all that swearing, all that cursing. And now it seems that you can`t say three words without cursing. And I don`t think that`s right.