Either you bring the water to L.A. or you bring L.A. to the water.

Good dialogue illuminates what people are not saying

In dramatic writing, the very essence is character change. The character at the end is not the same as he was at the beginning. He's changed-psychologically, maybe even physically.

The straight roads are the roads of progress, the crooked roads are thee roads of genius.

You're dumber than you think I think you are.

I'm not in business to be loved, but I am in business.

Finally, Colin Farrell showed up on my doorstep, only he wasn't Colin Farrell - he was just this Irish kid who had read the script and wanted to do it.

Larry Grobel senses there are no answers in life, only questions. Good ones.

And I think one way or another it's evident to those who work with me that as a writer, a director, a friend, as somebody's there that's very anxious to get the movie made.

But time has caught up with it and I think vindicated it. Shampoo, too: very dark, very ambitious movie.

I'm not supposed to be the one that's caught with his pants down.

...[I]t is pain to think of innocence in ruin.

Freedom is not just declared it is exercised.

We have got to nurture the spirit of independent journalism in this country, or we'll not save capitalism from its own excesses, and we'll not save democracy from its own inertia.

I had a great deal of arrogance and a great deal of bravado, but I think the bravado was brought on by a huge insecurity.

I told God I'd be back in a second. Man it's so hard not to act reckless.

Why blame the dark for being dark? It is far more helpful to ask why the light isn’t as bright as it could be.

Any kid who has two parents who are interested in him and has a houseful of books isn't poor.

Thirty years ago I was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, and given two and a half years to live. I have always wondered how they could be so precise about the half.

Ive been playing swing chords for a long time.

Old folks are the nation.