I wanted to write about the moment when your addictions no longer hide the truth from you. When your whole life breaks down. That's the moment when you have to somehow choose what your life is going to be about.

As a culture, we believe that if we kill something, we've killed the issue. That's why so many books end with death, why so many plays end with death, because it's full resolution. I'm always curious to know what happens after Romeo and Juliet die. In a way, that's the beginning of the story. Maybe beyond the story is even better.

I've been choking to death for years. By now this should be easy.

Screenwriters get paid a hell of a lot more money but their level of frustration seems to be so high that I don't want that.

Marla's philosophy of life, she told me, is that she can die at any moment. The tragedy of her life is that she doesn't.

Hey, even the Mona Lisa is falling apart.

The voice says, maybe you don't go to hell for the things you do. Maybe you go to hell for the things you don't do. The things you don't finish.