I love working on a typewriter - the rhythm, the sound; it's like playing the piano, which I do, too.

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.

We don't choose our wildest dreams. They choose us.

On Tony Gwynn: it was a wonder that such an exuberant man could be so patient.

MACE, n. A staff of office signifying authority. Its form, that of a heavy club, indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading from dissent.

See, forgiveness doesn't happen all at once. It's not an event - it's a process.

The uninformed must improve their deficit, or die.

We're not good at propping up old carcasses. We want to be on top of what's vital at any particular time, and not just hold onto something because it has a name.

Kids should read whatever they want to read. So I'm hoping that just like 15-year-olds read "Summer Sisters," I'm hoping that they'll read this.

Was it your strategy to just take as much punishment as you could and then hope he would fall down?

You do this because you like it, you think what you're making is beautiful. And if you think it's beautiful, maybe they think it's beautiful.

Begin where you are; work where you are; the hour which you are now wasting, dreaming of some far off success may be crowded with grand possibilities.