I think it is obscene that we should believe that we are entitled to end somebody's life, no matter what that person has supposedly done or not done.

I believe we need heroes...we need certain people who we can measure our own shortcomings by.

I passionately believe in heroes, but I think the world has changed its criteria in determining who it describes as a hero.

There's nothing more important in making movies than the screenplay.

I don't blame people for their mistakes, but I do ask that they pay for them.

I am passionately opposed to capital punishment, and I have been all my life.

I just love biography, and I'm fascinated by people who have shifted our destinies or our points of view.

I want to be remembered as a storyteller.

Art is not an elitist gift for a few select people. Art is for everyone.

What I am sad about is that there is now, in America, no equivalent to the art circuit.

I think Tom Paine is one of the greatest men that's ever lived.

Think of what you desire out of life.

Living isa thing you donow or never --which do you?

When you raise the most valid of points, you will be grazed by the most hollow of souls, and the most vacant of personages.

The gap between the rich and the poor is wider in the United States than it is in any of the other industrialized nations.

When I was a kid, I always saw these pictures of a man called Bob Gordon with a baritone saxophone, who I understood was my father. Turns out he wasn't. He was my mother's first husband.

Ali’s got a left, Ali’s got a right, if he hits you once, you’re asleep for the night

The greatest quest in life is to reach one's potential.

I like to have books around to give me ideas-to get the verbal part of my brain to start working.

Any fool can take a bad line out of a poem; it takes a real pro to throw out a good line.

Everything characters say or do is a clue to their personalities, their histories, and the forces that motivate them.