I’m frequently asked why I don’t write my memoirs. I think I have.

In San Francisco, vulgarity, "bad taste," ostentation are regarded as a kind of alien blight, an invasion or encroachment from outside. In Los Angeles, there is so much money and power connected with ostentation that is no longer ludicrous: it commands a kind of respect. For if the mighty behave like this, then quiet good taste means that you can't afford the conspicuous expenditures, and you become a little ashamed of your modesty and propriety.

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

For perhaps most Americans, TV is an apppliance, not to be used selectively but to be turned on - there's always something to watch.

Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them.

Protagonists are always loners, almost by definition.

In the arts, the critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising.