I never overcame my conviction that writing for commercial television was a kind of prostitution.

Talent is the infinite capacity for taking pains. Genius is the infinite capacity for achievement without taking any pains at all.

I despair of ever getting it through anybody's head I am not interested in bookshops, I am interested in what's written in the books. I don't browse in bookshops, I browse in libraries, where you can take a book home and read it, and if you like it you go to a bookshop and buy it.

Hollywood isn't a place, it's a way of life.

I do love secondhand books that open to the page some previous owner read oftenest. The day Hazlitt came he opened to "I hate to read new books," and I hollered "Comrade!" to whoever owned it before me.

Standing there, staring at the long shelves crammed with books, I felt myself relax and was suddenly at peace.

And for at least that moment, I wouldn't have traded the hundreds of books I've read for the few I know almost by heart.