My gratitude to Ridley [Scott] isn't anything new. I named one of my kids after him. But he's a very important person to me.

Dialogue is used to reveal not what we want to say, but what we are trying to hide.

Star Wars was great at the beginning and crap at the end while Star Trek has always been interesting, and the difference is in the writing, and the thematic intentions.

Look at what people are trying to conceal, and you’ll see that they’re revealing everything.

I'm a homebody, as many writers are, and need to be by myself, and I like to be by the Atlantic Ocean.

I think that gambling is a synthetic experience and that if you have any balls you gamble with your life. I have. So can everybody else.

I need as much of the business of making a film to be in my own workspace. It really ought to be a bit more like doing a novel, alone, at first. I'm feeling my way.

Out of all of the Star Trek movies, I happen to like the most recent one the best. I think it was the best one ever done.

When I was young I was only thinking of writing, and whatever was going on was unreal and comparatively unimportant.

Most films go out like skydivers who have had their chutes packed by a committee of blind schizophrenics.

On historical you take the known facts, dramatize them, and then stitch them together by invention. It's a projective thing.

I have to get off this elevator.I can't ride with him, Can't look at him, Can't be this close to him. Can't, Can't, can't.

If I had a bowler hat, I'd take it off to the author of this beautifully crafted steampunk novel.

It helps if you remember that everyone is doing their best from their level of consciousness.

I guess I thought I was Elvis Presley but I'll tell ya something. All Elvis did was stand on a stage and play a guitar. He never fell off on that pavement at no 80 mph.

Nothing ever gets anywhere. The earth keeps turning round and gets nowhere. The moment is the only thing that counts.

Negroes and Southern Europeans are mentally inferior to native born Americans.

I say to my child, I will explain to you as much of life as I can, but you must remember that there is a part of life for which you are the explanation.

Take off your rubber and there's one more inside her, it's not yours, who can it be?

Don't hit at all if you can help it; don't hit a man if you can possibly avoid it; but if you do hit him, put him to sleep.

We're comic. We're all comics. We live in a comic time. And the worse it gets the more comic we are.