We're all put to the test... but it never comes in the form or at the point we would prefer, does it?

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.

It always turns out this way: at first people idolize you, swear to be your faithful friend forever and then spit in your tea and in your soul, too.

I only care about the helped less, and the helpless, not the helpfest or the hellfest.

Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so.

God isn't trying to make our lives easier; He wants to make them more meaningful.

To be honest with you, I normally beat guys with my C game and I don't have to pull my A or B game out.

To build means to make architecture real on the borders of knowledge.

That was the summer of 1963, when everybody called me ‘Baby,’ and it didn't occur to me to mind.

In life you have two choices. You can laugh or you can cry. You have to laugh, you have to.

A lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention upon the rack, and one trick needs a great many more to make it good.

Good humor is one of the preservatives of our peace and tranquility.