People don't seem to have a problem with a romanticized New York, in fact that's almost all they ever do, in some sense, is romanticize that place. Los Angeles deserves the same courtesy.

Sacrificing one's life on the altar of literature is in some ways like sacrificing a goat to some malicious spirit. It's not always a humane or necessary decision.

Hollywood is famous for breeding monsters, and having worked in the business, I've known a lot of them. But only intermittently have I ever found them monstrous. They have many other qualities.

Much to my surprise, there's a sense for people in the cable industry that fiction writers might actually be good at script writing. You can write dialogue!

It's hard enough to make a novel a novel. I wouldn't know how to make it something else at the same time

I sometimes get asked if I think about film stuff while I'm writing fiction, and the answer is, of course not.

These are the kind of movies that only a real apparatchik, someone who thinks that corporations are people, could love.

During the 90s, I watched a lot of people getting fat and prosperous, and I thought, culture itself is the casualty of this.

There was a moment when the Berlin Wall came down and some people felt, "Oh capitalism won. That's the ideology we can believe in now."

It's hard to imagine there's a place for great writing inside a multinational conglomerate.

Everybody says, TV is great, the writer has so much power. I'm still trying to convince myself that's true. When do the writers ever have power? Ever? They don't. Even in the book industry.

They called it the Great War, but that implied worthiness and grandeur, not violence and helplessness and the utter waste and devastation our country, our city, our people endured.

We Shall Build Good Ships Here; At A Profit If We Can, At A Loss If We Must, But Always Good Ships.

Vice came in always at the door of necessity, not at the door of inclination.

The ideal structure for a family is one that remains so.

Where there is no want, there is usually much wantonness.

Vanity's really overrated. When I was 20, teenage girls had my picture on the wall... I don't need to be pretty anymore. I just am who I am.

You may talk about Sweden, you may talk about Rome, but Rockville Center's Floyd Patterson's home. A lot of people said that Floyd couldn't fight, but you should have seen him on the comeback night.

More business decisions occur over lunch and dinner than at any other time, yet no MBA courses are given on the subject.

We learn best in moments of enjoyment

If a general shows confidence in his men but always insists on his orders being obeyed, the gain will be mutual.