Let the cut tell the story. Otherwise you have not got dramatic action, you've got narration.

Don't write stage directions. If it is not apparent what the character is trying to accomplish by saying the line, tell us how the character said it or whether or not she moved to the couch isn't going to aid the case.

The product of the artist has become less important than the fact of the artist. We wish to absorb this person. We wish to devour someone who has experienced the tragic. In our society this person is much more important than anything he might create.

I'm greedy and ambitious like everybody else.

If you're writing an opinion piece, it's your job to write your opinion. If, on the other hand, you wrote a novel, as Virginia Woolf tells us, it would be inappropriate if you let your novel be influenced by your political opinions.

It's hard to write a good plot, it's very hard.

There is no such thing as character other than the habitual action, as Mr. Aristotle told us two thousand years ago.