I believe every...man remembers the girl he thinks he should have married. She reappears to him in his lonely moments, or he sees her in the face of a young girl in the park, buying a snowball under an oak tree by the baseball diamond. But she belongs to back there, to somebody else, and that thought sometimes rends your heart in a way that you never share with anyone else.

You have two choices in life. You either die or do something with your time. You're going to be doing something - why not write?

I feel blessed in the knowledge that I probably belong to the last generation that will remember what we call "traditional America."

Why do I always feel like you're trying to staple my umbilical cord to the corner of your desk?

There is no higher form of artistic expression then film

Then the sun broke above the crest of the hills and the entire countryside looked soaked in blood, the arroyos deep in shadow, the cones of dead volcanoes stark and biscuit-colored against the sky. I could smell pinion trees, wet sage, woodsmoke, cattle in the pastures, and creek water that had melted from snow. I could smell the way the country probably was when it was only a dream in the mind of God.

What's the worst thing about getting old? Getting old.