Movie acting, I later realized, reminds me of contract bridge. Each requires the same concentration, intense short-term memory, and obliviousness to everything else until the last trump is called - or whatever it is they do.

American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.

I do not much care for nature, and believe that flowers belong in vases rather than loose and untidy on the ground.

Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!

Freud did some serious damage to American literature - a lot of writers began therapy in the 1940s, after which they all became terribly egocentric.

As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days.

A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is ability to articulate human relationships.