Since films and television have staged everything imaginable before it happens, a true event, taking place in the real world, brings to mind the landscape of films.

It's one of the things writing students don't understand. They write a first draft and are quite disappointed, or often should be disappointed. They don't understand that they have merely begun, and that they may be merely beginning even in the second or third draft.

Adversity is a great teacher, but this teacher makes us pay dearly for its instruction; and often the profit we derive, is not worth the price we paid.

the great is seldom a deterrent to the mediocre

The famous carry about with them a great weight of patriarchal baggage-the footnotes of their lives.

How certain human beings are able to create works of art is a mystery, and why they should wish to do so, at a great cost to themselves usually, is another mystery. Works are not created by one's life; every life is rich in material.

Art is a profession, not a shrine.