McLuhanism and the media have broken the back of the book business; they've freed people from the shame of not reading. They've rationalized becoming stupid and watching television.

in show business there's not much point in asking yourself if someone really likes you or if he just thinks you can be useful to him, because there's no difference.

I felt as if I had attended the funeral of someone I didn't know.

Writers who go to Hollywood still follow the classic pattern: either you get disgusted by 'them' and you leave or you want the money and you become them.

I believe that we respond most and best to work in any art form (and to other experience as well) if we are pluralistic, flexible, relative in our judgments, if we are electic.

If there's anything to learn from the history of movies, it's that corruption leads to further corruption, not to innocence.

Where there is a will, there is a way. If there is a chance in a million that you can do something, anything, to keep what you want from ending, do it. Pry the door open or, if need be, wedge your foot in that door and keep it open.