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

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.

Anxious, inexperienced writers obey rules. Rebellious, unschooled writers break rules. Artists master the form.

Politicians pay more attention to interest groups than to the public interest.

A man separated from his reflective belt is no man at all.

Do you really wish to disobey me, Marbas? Do you wish to anger my father?

I make no distinction between writing and storytelling; I've always wanted to tell stories.

I would call the French scumbags, but that, of course, would be a disservice to bags filled with scum. I say we invade Iraq, then invade Chirac.

I'm very shy in real life; I can't really hit on girls.

Maybe you just get so attached to the music of your youth that you think it's better than what's coming out now.

Fame is an unnatural construct and those who go in search of it are the least likely to find it.

An audience sabotages my freedom, devastates my innocence, corrupts my integrity, inhibits my great joy - and of course gives me further to fall.

The eyes of men love to pluck the blossoms from the faded flowers they turn away.