War is a business in which a lot of people watch a few people get killed and are damn glad it wasn't them.

Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.

I try to write a certain amount each day, five days a week. A rule sometimes broken is better than no rule.

Discount my partiality, but my report is that so far The Winds of War is looking good.

This is an excellent martini — sort of tastes like it isn't there at all, just a cold cloud.

Some people think that all the equipment you need to discuss religion is a mouth.

The door available to everyone that can lead to happiness & success is the modest door of the public library. I found it to be so in my own life and work.

I felt there's a wealth in Jewish tradition, a great inheritance. I'd be a jerk not to take advantage of it.

The only true non-conformists are in the asylums; the only radically free spirits are in the death house awaiting the chair. We live by patterns.

Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war, but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act, but the coming of a state of mind.

The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots. If you're not an idiot, but find yourself in the Navy, you can only operate well by pretending to be one.

The first kiss and the first glass of wine are the best.

You said everything I needed to hear. I'm hooked now. You have me. What are you going to do with me?

The idea that the poor should have leisure has always been shocking to the rich.

People use irony as a defense mechanism.

Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and silence.

Being on a movie set is like one long financial crisis.

Memory is the receptacle and sheath of all knowledge

When I first met with agents, they said, "Okay, you're going to play plumbers and mechanics and bus drivers and farmers. Go."

We're really hard on ourselves and just need to relax more. A lot of guys really prefer you more natural. That's from experience.

He who fears an isolated Queen's Pawn should give up Chess.