It’s not a lie. It’s a gift for fiction.

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.

One of the problems in the biotech world is the lack of women in leadership roles, and I'd like to see that change by walking the walk.

A real man would never cry in public unless he was watching a movie in which a heroic dog died to save its master.Or if Heidi klum unbuttoned her blouse. Or he accidently dropped a full case of beer.

Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.

I wanted to dress the woman who lives and works, not the woman in a painting.

The person who doubts there is an external world does not need proof: he needs a cure.

In the commerce of language use only coin of gold and silver.

For self is the lord of self, self is the refuge of self; therefore curb thyself as the merchant curbs a good horse.

A country that goes out of its way to imprison the innocent has no business preaching democracy to the world.

I HAVE ALWAYS believed that each man makes his own happiness and is responsible for his own problems.

I'm not an actor. I can show up for friends and improvise a little bit, but I'm not an actor.