In that sense, film is superior, but the difficulty is your lack of control as a writer.

I met The Beatles and Stones at the same time, because Michael Cooper was doing several of their album covers.

When Kubrick decided to go the black comedy route with his movie, he thought of me to give it that flavor.

The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock - shock is a worn-out word - but astonish.

I'm not interested in attacking, I'm interested in astonishing.

Someone wrote a piece about Henry Green in The Partisan Review that was so intriguing that I got one of his novels, Loving, I believe, which was the first that came to attention in the United States.

There is no power on earth that can loosen a man's grip on his own throat

You can't do the end of the world in a conventionally dramatic way or Boy Meets Girl way.

When I finally made it to the set, I spent a lot of time doing damage control on The Magic Christian.

After Strangelove I also started work on an adaptation of The Collector.

Peter Beard is one of those people I've known a long time. We have an affinity. We share certain values.

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

Education may work wonders as well in warping the genius of individuals as in seconding it.

I do partake in a couple of drinks now and again, but I've never drank to feel alive.

The best practice is inspired by theory.

Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry. With both you are working with reality, a material just as hard as wood.

It is only perfection in the foundations that can lead to mastery of the whole...'Talent is Work'

What is a vow... but the mouth repeating what the heart has already promised?

God shall be all in all.

From the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.

I never heard the term "art world" until I was in my thirties, and I was like, "What are you guys talking about?" It's the world, and we all live in the world!