The greater the intellect, the more ease in its misdirection.

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.

The world was fair, the mountains tallIn Elder Days before the fall...

Movie and television stars lay down the law offashions, manners, speech, and even moral behavior. It has been proven that a movie or a television program can brainwash.

I try to walk at least three times a week for 40 minutes or an hour. I do it at the gym on the treadmill, or I go hiking outside.

there are two ways of speaking an audience will always like: one is, to tell them what they don't understand; and the other is, to tell them what they're used to.

The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer. I should say winter had given the bone and sinew to literature, summer the tissues and the blood.

For me alone Don Quixote was born and I for him. His was the power of action, mine of writing.

O Sacrament of Love! O sign of Unity! O bond of Charity! He who would have Life finds here indeed a Life to live in and a Life to live by.

It is only through inner peace that we can have true outer freedom.

You're nobody 'til somebody kills you.

Find your own specific voice in filmmaking and go for it. Either people will get it or they won't and that's what it's all about.