You do not keep the audience's interest by giving it information, but by withholding information ....

All writing is discipline, but screenwriting is a drill sergeant.

A fine work of art - music, dance, painting, story - has the power to silence the chatter in the mind and lift us to another place.

When we want mood experiences, we go to concerts or museums. When we want meaningful emotional experience, we go to the storyteller.

Do research. Feed your talent. Research not only wins the war on cliche, it's the key to victory over fear and it's cousin, depression.

In a world of lies and liars, an honest work of art is always an act of social responsibility.

Given the choice between trivial material brilliantly told versus profound material badly told, an audience will always choose the trivial told brilliantly.

No matter our talent, we all know in the midnight of our souls that 90 percent of what we do is less than our best.

Boredom is the inner conflict we suffer when we lose desire, when we lack a lacking.

In comedy laughter settles all arguments.

Story is metaphor for life and life is lived in time.

If I had some of Jesus' tools, I'd build a big house that has no rules. And a bed that's big enough for 13 babies, and me & Miss Olivia Brown.

Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve.

Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.

Your siblings are the only people in the world who know what it's like to have been brought up the way you were.

So many times nowadays it's about having two good songs on an album and a bunch of filler, and I wanted to make something that I felt every song on the album was fun for everybody.

Twelve million students take the PARCC or Smarter Balanced. Now, if 5 percent opt out, that creates - that triggers some restrictions, and 5 percent of 12 million is only 600,000.

A man without makeup is like a cake without icing.

I'm not a vampire movie fan, per se. That's not to say that I haven't enjoyed movies with vampires in them.

If we do not fill our mind with prayer, it will fill itself with anxieties, worries, temptations, resentments, and unwelcome memories.

My ma used to say that crying is good for you. Tears are the path that free your mind of sorrowful thoughts.