I always thought the real violence in Hollywood isn't what's on the screen. It's what you have to do to raise the money.

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.

Have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time - beautiful?

There are greater goals in life than material and sensual pleasures

If the object of poetry is, to make men, then poetry is the heir of prophecy.

Poets are far rarer birds than kings.

Seeing is more than a physiological phenomenon... We see not only with our eyes but with all that we are and all that our culture is. The artist is a professional see-er.

True repentance never leads to despair. Its leads home. It leads to grace.

I just want the world to know that God is present, that he's alive for ever more.

The first lesson in Christ's school is self-denial.

Education belongs pre-eminently to the church ... neutral or lay schools from which religion is excluded are contrary to the fundamental principles of education.

If you depend on being emotionally inspired or newly motivated, you will need a new fix almost every day.