I go out there. I'm out there every day. [Pause] There is nothing out there.

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.

Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool.

Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.

Trust your instincts: they tend to see you right. By listening to them, at least you can sleep at night.

I do not know if there is a more dreadful word in the English language than that word "lost."

There is a pretty girl on the face of the magazine and all I see is my dirty hands turning the page.

Clearly I am a very strong, top-of-the-line, always-rising-to-it personage.

When producers want to know what the public wants, they graph it as curves. When they want to tell the public what to get, they say it in curves.

Giants in Their promises, but those obtained, weak pigmies In their performance.

Life is a horror for the Korean people. And I think isolating them further is going to make life more miserable.

While my interest in natural history has added very little to my sum of achievement, it has added immeasurably to my sum of enjoyment in life.