If they gave a Nobel Peace Prize for work against big tobacco, not just in the industry, but also with the California tax initiative, he really deserves one.

From a writing point of view, you now have teams of screenwriters working with a director. What's lost in the process is the power of that one heart, brain, gut and soul that makes something an original piece of writing.

There are some young women movie stars who are doing it everywhere, smoking in every movie, sometimes even with placements with a pack of cigarettes.

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

I worry that we are approaching a time when that which is shocking is squeezed out by the Stalinism of political correctness.

Your characters get angry at you if you speak about them and stop you from giving birth to them on the page in revenge. Real writers sit down and write. Wannabe writers sit around and talk.

Anyone I think who - that would go through a cancer ward and would see the result of what smoking does, would never, ever think of smoking is sexy again.