I'm greedy and ambitious like everybody else.

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.

She didn't know how to love, to give herself to someone, to out herself in someone else's keeping and take him into hers. She didn't trust anyone with her heart - or the darker places of her soul.

The past is a very determined ghost, haunting every chance it gets.

Monastery you can't retire it's forever, there isn't music, films, parties and other crazy stuff. It's about spiritual life... It becomes harder and harder!

A grandchild is a miracle, but a renewed relationship with your own children is even a greater one.

Good things happen when you go for it!

I'm for women choosing whatever they want to do but they have to really know what they are doing.

I'll repent one day, just not right now.

Go out into the world, find work that you love, learn from your mistakes, and work hard to make a difference.

I've often wondered how a man who knew he was going to die could stand here and say he was the luckiest man on the face of the earth, but now I guess I know how he felt.

I'm not anybody's judge; I don't know what motivates people to do what they do. But I have a lot of admiration for anybody who can start with absolutely nothing and make a little something out of it.