I went to LA because my parents were there and somebody asked me if I wanted to be in a movie. It was easy, it wasn't easy to do, but I fell into it. I made a living as an actor for a long time, but I didn't think of myself as an actor, I thought I was a writer.

I wonder if these editors, why they're not writers sometimes, because they know so much about writing.

Hollywood's always saying, "Yesterday!" and scares you to death with all that deadline and yelling and impatience stuff.

Life is sinister. I don't know if I am representing life exactly, but sinister, I think it has to do with dreams. You're dreaming when you're awake: you're sitting on the subway and you look around, and you can think of sinister things that are kind of delightful to think of because they're not really happening, but they are in your mind. They're about wishes, desires - sexy, dangerous, hopeful, the way it could be, maybe.

I don't mean to talk so much about screenplay writing. Who wants to talk about screenplay writing? I've taught it and I felt like a charlatan because what I was teaching I probably couldn't do.

I tried to write things, but they were so ridiculous and stupid and impossible and I had not a clue what they were, so that delusion went on for a long time. Maybe it's still going on, only somehow I sucked some people in. It was a long time of writing things that didn't make sense in the real world, and I'm embarrassed about them now in a jocular way.

Preston Sturges, who wrote The Palm Beach Story, said screenplay writing is architecture. That's why it's so rare to read one that's any good.