When we leave the play saying how spectacular the sets or costumes were, or how interesting the ideas, it means we had a bad time.

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.

Sometimes love means letting go when you want to hold on tighter.

The universe is seeming really huge right now. I need something to hold on to.

Imagine for a moment Napoleon I, to have borne the name of Jenkins, or Washington to have sustained the appellation of John Smith!

Everything is so sad and so wonderful.

Life has confirmed for me the thoughts and impressions I had when I was 18, as if it was all intuition.

People who love to eat are always the best people.

If a guy is over 25 percent jerk, he's in trouble. And Henry was 95 percent.

The older I get, the more I believe in what I can't explain or understand, even more than the things that are explainable and understandable.

His smile bore the same relation to a real smile as false teeth do to real teeth.

Respect the delicate ecology of your delusions.