You got an all-out prize fight, you wait 'til the fight's over, one guy's left standing and that's how you know who's won.

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.

Early violence and early abandonment damages people and family systems, and can persist for decades if not healed.

The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.

Design is about discipline and reality, not about fantasy beyond reality.

It's not the large things that send a man to the madhouse... no, it's the continuing series of small tragedies... not the death of his love but the shoelace that snaps with no time left.

What's terrible is that there's nothing terrible, that the very essence of life is petty, uninteresting, and degradingly trite.

All is vanity, and discovering it - the greatest vanity.

When I was at college, my nickname was Keds, because I wore Keds. I guess it wasn't really a nickname, because nicknames are usually given to you by people who are your friends and who know you.

I really, really love Hilary Clinton. I think she's very cool. She's out there and she's involved.

And much more am I sorrier for my good knights' loss than for the loss of my fair queen; for queens I might have enough, but such a fellowship of good knights shall never be together in no company.

Maybe love is like a pendulum. It swings back and forth, slowly, steadily, and sometimes you don't know where it will come to rest.