Story is about eternal, universal forms, not formulas.

Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.

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

Life is chaotic and meaningless, and you have to find your meaning. You must find the answer, you can't just live. That's the point of story: helping you find your meaning in life.

Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.

Writing is a marathon, not a sprint.

Influence is just persuasion in slow motion.

God help you if you use voice-over in your work, my friends. God help you. That's flaccid, sloppy writing. Any idiot can write a voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character.

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.

Thank you for helping my sister, ” he says.I lean forward, mimicking his position. “I’m happy to.”Calliope leans out her window. “STOP FLIRTING AND GET BACK TO WORK.

All altruism springs from putting yourself in the other person's place.

Disappear Here. The syringe fills with blood. You're a beautiful boy and that's all that matters. Wonder if he's for sale. People are afraid to merge. To merge.

Words are in this respect like water, that they often take their taste, flavour, and character, from the mouth out of which they proceed, as the water from the channel through which it flows.

I'd like to think humans have a stronger sense of justice than the random forces of nature do.

I don't want to be in a movie with 20 minutes of dialogue and then stand around while the robots start explosions.

There are only shades of gray. Black and white are nothing more than lofty ideals in our minds, the standards by which we try to judge things, and map out our place in the world in relevance to them.

She was the prettiest, silliest, most affected, husband-hunting butterfly ever.

A man should always be drunk, Minnie, when he talks politics - it's the only way in which to make them important.

What sad faces one always sees in the asylums for orphans! It is more fatal to neglect the heart than the head.