"This bouquet is not given lightly. I've worked with many of the screen's greatest stars, and, if I were tendering posies merely to strike a popular chord, I should pick one of them. But Tamiroff is so far ahead of the field as a hard-working artist that he easily claims all awards."

“It's not just a good part, it's a great part, but until Miss Goddard passed her screen test as Louvette, I hadn't been able to find a Hollywood actress who both looked it and could play it convincingly. What most of the candidates lacked was imagination.”

“The phrases, "happy ending" and "unhappy ending" are misnomers. They belong to an era when the public demanded a saccharine finish to every picture, irrespective of whether or not it was logical. Film-goers of 1933 insist upon a new standard in their screen entertainment. They are not particularly concerned about the ending of a picture so long as it is truthful. Naturally, they do not want a preponderance of depressing themes, but I am firmly convinced that they would rather witness a tragic finish that is truthful and logical than a sugar-coated ending that is not. In The Sign of the Cross the problem of bringing the story to a close is one that would have been difficult a few years ago, when the sugary tradition ruled the film industry. But now that the words "happy" and "unhappy" have been deleted from cinema terminology, our task was simplified, and we gave an ending which appeals to logic and intelligence.”

“Most people never achieve stardom until they've had at least one good, serious siege of the grand passion. It doesn't hurt a career. It helps. Leatrice Joy was a smart, capable girl, she had beauty and talent and everything to make her a star. But she was marking time. Then she fell in love with John Gilbert and married him. It changed her completely. She seemed to bloom and blossom. And this new radiance showed in her work. She went right on to the top.”

“Actors are born, and every human being is born an actor.”

“Sensible married women usually stop acting after the honeymoon—but not their husbands. Young men go on acting parts until they reach maturity, and from there to the grave they're preoccupied with the problem of acting normal. Most men, I'm sorry to say, are "hams" at heart.”

“Legend rides high with history, but truth follows a lonely trail. I've pursued verity from the museum at Cairo to the smoking tepees of the Cheyennes at Lame Deer, Montana.”