There is no power on earth that can loosen a man's grip on his own throat

I met The Beatles and Stones at the same time, because Michael Cooper was doing several of their album covers.

When Kubrick decided to go the black comedy route with his movie, he thought of me to give it that flavor.

The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock - shock is a worn-out word - but astonish.

I'm not interested in attacking, I'm interested in astonishing.

Someone wrote a piece about Henry Green in The Partisan Review that was so intriguing that I got one of his novels, Loving, I believe, which was the first that came to attention in the United States.

In that sense, film is superior, but the difficulty is your lack of control as a writer.

You can't do the end of the world in a conventionally dramatic way or Boy Meets Girl way.

When I finally made it to the set, I spent a lot of time doing damage control on The Magic Christian.

After Strangelove I also started work on an adaptation of The Collector.

Peter Beard is one of those people I've known a long time. We have an affinity. We share certain values.

I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?

Reason is the presupposition of faith, and faith is the fulfillment of reason.

Honey will wipe the floor with you." His eyes went half-mast, and his voice dropped in evident pleasure. "I know.

It is dangerous for a ruler to trust others. He who trusts others can be manipulated by others.

The philosopher spends in becoming a man the time which the ambitious man spends in becoming a personage.

A lot of the time you just have to follow your creative muse and do what you think is best for the story.

Faith is believing in the impossible because we have a God who is master of impossible.

I believe there's a landscape that exists underneath everything that we can see in present-day stuff. And I think that makes life kind of a detective story.

War creates its own intensity of hatred... You don't want to use force except as an absolute last resort.