My father could have been deported because on his immigration application he said that he was a printer, obviously because he didn't want them to be checking his writings.

In the olden days, of course, cigarette companies would pay to have their product advertised in movies and to have actors smoke cigarettes.[Ronald Reagan used to do it.]

I had read too many memoirs that were written after the writer or the director was past his or her prime.

I'm not suggesting at all that we take away all of the characters' vices. I am suggesting that this particular vice is so insidious, so nefarious, and so deadly that simply by glamorizing it or poisoning our young adults, and I think it's a very separate category, but in no way am I suggesting that we move on from banning smoking in movies to banning drinking, you know, or whatever else we want to do.

I have only one loyalty - to my writing. I never wanted to be the head of a studio or a producer.

Don't smoke. Don't kill yourselves. Don't maim yourselves. Tell your friends. Please don't smoke.

I always try to do true endings and that's where I got into trouble always because Hollywood wants to do happy endings.