Any time two characters are talking about a third, the scene is a crock of s***.

Films have degenerated to their original operation as carnival amusement - they offer not drama but thrills.

The Oscars demonstrate the will of the people to control and judge those they have elected to stand above them (much, perhaps, as in bygone days, an election celebrated the same).

Every scene should be able to answer three questions: "Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don't get it? Why now?"

When the three branches of government have failed to represent the citizenry and the mass of the media has failed to represent the citizenry, then the citizenry better represent the citizenry.

Forget narrative, backstory, characterisation, exposition, all of that. Just make the audience want to know what happens next.

It is the writer’s job to make the play interesting. It is the actor’s job to make the performance truthful.

Opportunity may knock, but it seldom nags.

We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.

People may or may not say what they mean... but they always say something designed to get what they want.

Being a writer in Hollywood is like going to Hitler's Eagle Nest with a great idea for a bar mitzvah.

Evil is evil, and no good comes of calling it by any other name.

The Christian Constitutional Society, its object is first: The support of the Christian religion. Second: The support of the United States.

I don't consider myself, you know, in real life one of those funny guys. My comedy comes through my work.

... there is a lightness about the feminine mind--a touch and go--music, the fine arts, that kind of thing--they should study those up to a certain point, women should; but in a light way, you know.

Every single thing you see on-screen came out of somebody's creativity. It doesn't exist. Nature didn't deliver it to us. Everything had to be dreamed.

Sophos turned red, and I wondered about the circulation of his blood; maybe his body kept an extra supply of it in his head, ready for blushing.

Necessity, weight, and value are three concepts inextricably bound: only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value.

I hope we shall . . . crush in [its] birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations.

I feel like as you get older, the roles you get change, and you don't always want to do the same tone over and over again.

Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the people.