The purpose of technique is to free the unconscious. If you follow the rules ploddingly, they will allow your unconscious to be free.

I don't think there's any information to be gotten from television.

Consider: for all the gobbledegook [film studio] executives spout about backstory, all that we, the audience, want to know is what happens next. That's the only thing that's going on. . . . Character is nothing other than action, and character-driven means The plot stinks, and you'd better hope the star is popular enough to open the movie in spite of it.

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.

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.

They have a desire to put on plays and to fulfill that traditional role of a theater in a community: to be the place where people go to hear the truth.

You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way! And that's how you get Capone.