I never understood people who said their greatest fear was public speaking, or spiders, or any of the other minor terrors. How could you fear anything more than death? Everything else offered moments of escape: a paralyzed man could still read Dickens; a man in the grips of dementia might have flashes of the must absurd beauty.

There are a few moments in your life when you are truly and completely happy, and you remember to give thanks. Even as it happens you are nostalgic for the moment, you are tucking it away in your scrapbook.

‎I was cursed with the pessimism of both the Russians and the Jews two of the gloomiest tribes in the world. Still if there wasn't greatness in me maybe I had the talent to recognize it in others even in the most irritating others.

With the movies, people are not going to wait around. The deadline is a deadline. In publishing it's more a polite suggestion.

I was like a well trained pianist who knows which note to hit, but can't make the music his own.

Once you realise that heroes die, everything becomes that much more terrifying.

Hollywood screenwriters tend to have the longevity of NFL running backs. So the truth is no one can put more pressure on us than we put on ourselves.