Hitchcock denigrated American films, saying they were all 'pictures of people talking' - as, indeed, most of them are.

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.

I don't want to be hiding from people. It would be difficult to be recognized everywhere, so that I couldn't do things ordinary people do.

I think, in these days, especially in the States, you have to be a politician or an assassin or something, to really be a superstar.

You have to use fantasy to show different sides to reality. That's how it can bend.

I think I'd want to have an affair with a Montgomery but marry a Taggert.

Preaching is tax free. Very little to do with God, a lot to do with money

Desmond Mason is one of my best friends in the world. And he's a great, great talent.

The problem with architecture is it goes with the territory, because it's an applied art and because you're messing about with people and their environment.

Any man who talks about his love affairs thereby proves he is ignorant of love and is moved only by vanity.

Baseball means Spring's Here. Football means Winter's Coming.

Passions weaken, but habits strengthen, with age, and it is the great task of youth to set the current of habit and to form the tastes which are most productive of happiness in life.