If my books had been any worse, I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better, I should not have come.

One would think a writer would be happy here — if a writer is ever happy anywhere.

The agent never receipts his bill, puts his hat on and bows himself out. He stays around forever, not only for as long as you can write anything that anyone will buy, but as long as anyone will buy any portion of any right to anything that you ever did write. He just takes ten per cent of your life.

Most people go through life using up half their energy trying to protect a dignity they never had

They don't want you until you have made a name, and by the time you have made a name, you have developed some kind of talent they can't use. All they will do is spoil it, if you let them.

A nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy.

The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure and natural movement