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

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

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.

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

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.

She had the look in her eye when you kick and kick at the door and it doesn't open, when you write a boy letters and letters and he never loves you, not ‘til the day he dies. Not even then.

She cleans a toilet inside and out under a minute. More like terrifying

Me can't be prejudice. Me can't me no think of life that way. Because, me figure if you prejudice, that mean you have a hate. If you have a hate inside of you, you can't be righteous.

My heart always belongs to the one who doesn't want it.

Christ, who came meek and mild to save us from pain and suffering, was the One who talked more about hell than any other person in Scripture.

I'm not thinking in any big thematic or conceptual terms - especially in this book [Lincoln in the Bardo] when I was trying to make the voices more active, more energetic.

The simpler things are, the happier they are.

But if something did happen, it happened. Whether it's right or wrong. I accept everything that happens, and that's how I became the person I am now.

You've got to dance like nobody's watching, and love like it's never going to hurt.

Walk at the edge of the precipices! It is the best way to learn walking carefully!