Television is really what we've been looking for all our lives.... [It's] perfect. You turn a few knobs and lean back and drain your mind of all thought. And there you are watching the bubbles in the primordial ooze.

Without magic, there is no art. Without art, there is no idealism. Without idealism, there is no integrity. Without integrity, there is nothing but production.

The kind of lawyer you hope the other fellow has.

It is a language which is being molded by writers to do delicate things and yet be in the grasp of superficially educated people.

A city with all the personality of a paper cup. (On Los Angeles)

When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it stays split.

In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.