Our job, as writers is to do our jobs.

Culture exists and evolves to relegate to habit categories of interactions the constant conscious reference to which would make human interaction impossible.

Always do things the least interesting way, the most blunt way, and you make a better movie. This is my experience.

War is tragedy. The great war stories are tragedies. It's the failure of diplomacy. 'War and Peace,' 'A Farewell to Arms,' 'For Whom the Bell Tolls.' Those are some of the greatest tragedies.

My definition of a 'friend' is, coming from Chicago, someone who says, 'Yeah, sure. You know what? Let's talk about what we can talk about. Let's help each other out. Your politics are none of my business.'

It’s not a lie. It’s a gift for fiction.

Being a writer in Hollywood is like going to Hitler's Eagle Nest with a great idea for a bar mitzvah.