Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency.

However toplofty and idealistic a man may be, he can always rationalize his right to earn money.

Television is just one more facet of that considerable segment of our society that never had any standard but the soft buck.

The keynote of American civilization is a sort of warm-hearted vulgarity. The Americans have none of the irony of the English, none of their cool poise, none of their manner. But they do have friendliness. Where an Englishman would give you his card, an American would very likely give you his shirt.

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

The best way to find out if you have any friends is to go broke. The ones that hang on longest are your friends. I don't mean the ones that hang on forever. There aren't any of those.

The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men.