People ask me, 'What do you do?' And I tell them I'm a writer, but always with the silent reservation, 'I am, of course, not really a writer. Hemingway was a writer.'

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.

Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.

Clean water is a great example of something that depends on energy. And if you solve the water problem, you solve the food problem.

Ruins, for me, are the beginning. With the debris, you can construct new ideas. They are symbols of a beginning.

If you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!

Mentally I must be lazy, like a little kid, but I always seem to do well when there's a tough situation.

You play a couple of shows, and these label guys come - and they leave halfway through a show. Then the phone calls just stop. And your heart is broken.

Psychological knowledge has made us dull.

I promise you, a lot of it is luck. But you make your own luck by working really hard and trying lots and lots of things.

While it's true that some writers, when taking on love and war, find the task too big, or only succeed in one but not the other, Mengestu tracks both themes with authority and feeling.

You've got to give people a fair chance of saying what they believe, and then you've got to decide, "Do you believe 'em?"