[M*A*S*H] didn't get released by FOX, it escaped.

Filmmaking is a chance to live many lifetimes.

I never knew what I wanted, except that it was something I hadn't seen before.

[The Player is] not a truthful indictment of Hollywood. It's much uglier than I portrayed it, but nobody would've been interested if I'd shown just how sadistic, cruel and self-orientated it is.

Your own ego is the only trap that I think you can fall into.

I love fishing. You put that line in the water and you don't know what's on the other end. Your imagination is under there.

Chance is another name that we give to our mistakes. And all of the best things in my films are mistakes.

I don't think screenplay writing is the same as writing - I mean, I think it's blueprinting.

If you have a child who is seven feet tall, you don't cut off his head or his legs. You buy him a bigger bed and hope he plays basketball.

All of my films deal with the same thing: striving, socially and culturally, to stay alive.

What is an ending? There's no such thing. Death is the only ending.

If it's a penny for your thoughts and you put in your two cents worth, then someone, somewhere is making a penny.

Your thoughts are more real than you are.

Making changes isn't about stopping the problem, it's about starting the solution.

Playing in front of people is a lot different from playing in your room

My friend Ed Begley goes fishing. It's a little smelly to me, I don't like it so much. I like to eat fish, but I don't like to catch them.

I feel a terrible loss when I (eventually must) complete a work of fiction.

I am a shadow’s shade, a lunatic, perhaps, Of two dark moons.

Predicting recessions is indeed a dark art, but I think we are several years away from the next one.

I was so shy. Instead of waiting in line with other kids at lunch, I'd go to a corner and buy a pretzel and orange juice. I think I had that for lunch the first three years of high school.

He who does not fear death cares naught for threats.