The avant-garde is to the left what jingoism is to the right. Both are a refuge in nonsense.

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.

Nobility is not only in forgiveness.

But wherever there is man, there must be some sort of route

I don't really want to write fiction at all. I don't see why fiction is necessary when we have real life already confusing enough.

Only when we are over, does our real life begin.

What is common to many is least taken care of, for all men have greater regard for what is their own than what they possess in common with others.

Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.

I have great energy and I have great tasks ahead of me.

Down deep in every soul has a hidden longing, impulse, and ambition to do something fine and enduring...If you are willing, great things are possible to you.

I wanted to portray a newly democratized, enclosed society. I wanted to show how extraordinarily fluid people are in their embrace of other human beings.

I don't think that the real enemy of the music industry is illegal downloading; I think the real enemy of the music industry is radio.