I regard the writing of humor as a supreme artistic challenge.

When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

The films of The Caine Mutiny and Marjorie Morningstar always seemed to me mere thin skims of the story lines, and I never did see a meager Hollywood caper called Youngblood Hawke, vaguely based on my 800-page novel. So it was that I opted for television, with its much broader time limits, for The Winds of War.

War is a business in which a lot of people watch a few people get killed and are damn glad it wasn't them.

Every hour spent on the Caine was a great hour in all our lives-if you don't think so now you will later on, more and more.

The only true non-conformists are in the asylums; the only radically free spirits are in the death house awaiting the chair. We live by patterns.

This is an excellent martini — sort of tastes like it isn't there at all, just a cold cloud.