Most of life's actions are within our reach, but decisions take willpower.

All writing is discipline, but screenwriting is a drill sergeant.

A fine work of art - music, dance, painting, story - has the power to silence the chatter in the mind and lift us to another place.

When we want mood experiences, we go to concerts or museums. When we want meaningful emotional experience, we go to the storyteller.

Do research. Feed your talent. Research not only wins the war on cliche, it's the key to victory over fear and it's cousin, depression.

In a world of lies and liars, an honest work of art is always an act of social responsibility.

Given the choice between trivial material brilliantly told versus profound material badly told, an audience will always choose the trivial told brilliantly.

No matter our talent, we all know in the midnight of our souls that 90 percent of what we do is less than our best.

Boredom is the inner conflict we suffer when we lose desire, when we lack a lacking.

In comedy laughter settles all arguments.

Story is metaphor for life and life is lived in time.

Was there any meaning to life or to war, that two men should sit together and jump within seconds of each other and yet never meet on the ground below?

All of us must cross the line between ignorance and insight many times before we truly understand.

The strongest people are not those who show strength in front of the world but those who fight and win battles that others do not know anything about.

When had she moved so close? Her brain screamed at her to back away. She would regret this. She already regretted this.

I'm saying that it's a big decision. Your first love is important. It's part of your story The story you'll tell yourself, the one you'll tell about yourself, for the rest of your life.

The qualities I am looking for in Miss Right are intelligence and humour.

Nothing is really 'safe'.

If man limits himself to a satisfied animal existence, and asks from life only what such an existence can give, the higher values of life at once disappear.

A moderate addiction to money may not always be hurtful; but when taken in excess it is nearly always bad for the health.

I don't want to collect Indian art, though pots and beadwork and blankets made by Indians remain the most beautiful art objects in the American West, in my opinion.