When I started out I was a failed actor.

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.

Doubt is the thing that’ll kill you, the only thing, and it’ll kill your friends, too.

Look, lady, I’m not going to bullshit you. I need to smoke enough crack cocaine to communicate with aliens. Give me all the money you got!

And reading is a wonderful thing for the mind. I have not been many places in my life. But in books, I have traveled all over the world.

I try to be objective. I do not claim to be detached.

Today I love you more than ever; tomorrow I will love you even more. I need you more than ever, I want you more than ever.

Life is nothing but rags and tags and filthy rags at that.

My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well been documented, are various other parts of my body.

The best thing at the tournament were the cheerleaders.

We shouldn't be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas.

The soul is the birthless, deathless, changeless part of us - the part of us that looks out from behind our eyes and has no form.