Every fear hides a wish.

If You can't tell it to me in one sentence, they can't put it in TV Guide.

If you find that a point cannot be made without narration, it is virtually certain that the point is unimportant to the story (which is to say, to the audience).

I grew up in a tough neighborhood and we used to say you can get further with a kind word and a gun than just a kind word.

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.

Movies were never an art form, they were entertainment. It just evolved into an art form from there, and it's still evolving in different ways.

Characters on stage, like people in what we refer to as "real life," do not speak to reveal themselves. They do not speak to conceal themselves. They speak to get whatever it is that they want. It is the only reason they speak.