Words are a completely different form of expression. The word P-E-N-I-S is an entirely different form of communication than a photograph of the same thing. H

The secret of the creative life is to feel at ease with your own embarrassment.

Screenplays are not works of art. They are invitations to others to collaborate on a work of art.

Let's just shoot in black and white. Don't explain why. Have no reason for it. Just do it because it's interesting.

If you write interesting roles, you get interesting people to play them. If you write roles that are full of nuance and contradiction and have interesting dialog, actors are drawn to that.

One of the things that I do like about filmmaking is that you find out how to solve new problems.

Once you have a situation that is fresh, then you sort of believe in it and it becomes normal. So you do end up with protagonists that haven't been in other movies before.

Don't ever let the viewer settle in and get ahead of you.

Ultimately, it's an illusion that you can understand yourself.

Those artists who say that somehow therapy or analysis will thwart their creativity are completely misinformed. It's absolutely the opposite: it opens closed doors.

I teach a course in screenwriting at Columbia, but I've never taken a course and I've never read a book about it!

Ignorance and power and pride are a deadly mixture, you know.

Far help seldom solves near troubles.

Success is never about money, it's always about talent.

Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being.

The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live. Be a man before being an artist!

Donald Trump's language has been atrocious, his behavior toward women.

An expert is someone who takes something you already know and makes it sound confusing.

Most of us do not use speech to express thought. We use it to express feelings.

I can't multiply myself out of a paper bag. But when it comes to roots, I'm your man.

I'm probably a monster-of-the-week guy, and that comes back down to my old favorite show, which as a kid was always Scooby-Doo.