It's hard to write a good play because it's hard to structure a plot. If you can think of it off the top of your head, so can the audience.

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.

All stories are the sin of their weaver.

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.

I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it.

In healthy individuals, emotions don't distort rationality, they enhance it!

Captain and coach must be seen to be banging the same drum.

Barak Obama got involved, I don't know if Brexit was through a friendship with David Cameron.

Bring a wife home to your house when you are of the right age, not far short of 30 years, nor much above this is the right time for marriage.

In the case of judges, I wouldn't be shocked to find out the number on television exceeds the number in real life — what is it about those black robes that makes us think ovaries?

We must master our good fortune, or it will master us.

Christianity gave eroticism its savor of sin and legend when it endowed the human female with a soul.