How does one make a movie about decadence these days? Now that we're allowed to do it, it's too late.

For Catholics before Vatican II, the land of the free was pre-eminently the land of Sister Says-except, of course, for Sister, for whom it was the land of Father Says.

Of course, history is only a muddle of facts and a fuddle of professors, and anyone who thinks it is one clear voice saying "Arise, sir Knight" deserves a life sentence in Camelot.

Saloons provide moments of genuine ecstasy - but only if your soul is at peace and the rest of your life bears contemplating. Otherwise, they are palaces of misery.

I picked up the writing on the very day he died. It was the only consolation I could find.

The only reason I didn't kill myself after I read the reviews of my first book was because we have two rivers in New York and I couldn't decide which one to jumo into.

The American male doesn't mature until he has exhausted all other possibilities.

Suicide is about life, being in fact the sincerest form of criticism life gets.

If the French were really intelligent, they'd speak English.

The worse we treat people in this country, the more delicately we talk about them.

Mr Michener, as timeless as a stack of 'National Geographics,' is the ultimate Summer Writer. Just as one goes back to the cottage in Maine, so one goes back to one's Michener.

You don't ask for all that you get. You don't get all that you ask for. That shouldn't stop you from working the hardest for what you wan't the most.

But one way or another competing and weeding takes place . . . or a race goes downhill.

Once upon a time, time was in the hands of the poor. Those who sensibly, reasonably, and firmly held it. Extravagance is only today and tomorrow.

Young men soon give and soon forget affronts Old age is slow in both.

I'm not afraid of chaos and I'm happy talking to strangers. I really love not knowing where I'm going.

The object of punishment is, prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.

Tariq tucked the gun into the waist of his denims. Then he said a thing both lovely and terrible. "For you," he said. "I'd kill with it for you, Laila.

I feel lucky to be doing TV right now because I get another chance every day.

You don't do characters that are the same as you, otherwise why bother to act?

I envy animals for two things - their ignorance of evil to come, and their ignorance of what is said about them.