I cannot be a character in a bad movie. I can't be.

Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.

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

Life is chaotic and meaningless, and you have to find your meaning. You must find the answer, you can't just live. That's the point of story: helping you find your meaning in life.

Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.

Writing is a marathon, not a sprint.

Influence is just persuasion in slow motion.

God help you if you use voice-over in your work, my friends. God help you. That's flaccid, sloppy writing. Any idiot can write a voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character.

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.

He's turned his life around. He used to be depressed and miserable. Now he's miserable and depressed.

Everybody needs that one person that takes you to the right place to see all the positives in your life.

In the darkest place, shed the brightest light.

My 'work' is about seeing not about ideas.

I've always sort of wondered: If everyone else's opinion is what matters, then do you ever really have one of your own?

History and legend and art and romance meet and mingle to create that indefinable sorcery of Venice. It is like nothing on earth except a poet's dream.

Bosses and leaders everywhere should cherish the people who bring them bad news, disappointing data or hard problems.

Sentences are like just caught fish. Spunky today, stinky tomorrow.

Every act of perception, is to some degree an act of creation, and every act of memory is to some degree an act of imagination.

I think women want to look beautiful. I think that's an important thing. It is relevant.