Everything can be undone, including success.

To whom one reports is a unit of measure. It measures the exact distance between the player and the center of power. It is the closest we can get to a calibrated answer to the question 'How big am I?' More than the size of an executive's office or even his title, which no one remembers anyway, the fewer people between the player and a 'yes,' the more powerful he is.

True power is invisible and impeccable, like good taste. It is never clumsy or artless. Powerful people whisper, suggest, seduce, in order to coerce. They only use volume for effect. This is how you can tell a blowhard from a mogul. ... Most powerful people don't need to coerce; their mere presence is coercive.

Self-love knows no impediment.

My sense of Los Angeles was very New York provincial, as in 'all those people are crazy out there' (which they are), and stupid (which they're not), and immoral (it's more interesting than that).

I think there are always actor parts, and then there are movie-star parts, and an actors always an actor until he does a movie-star part.

Always remember the famous adage about the movie business: You can't make a living, you can only get rich.