A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.

You can have a hangover from other things than alcohol. I had one from women.

Courage is a strange thing: One can never be sure of it

LA doesn't have the heart of a paper cup.

The tragedy of life, Howard, is not that the beautiful die young, but that they grow old and mean. It will not happen to me.

When the plot flags, bring in a man with a gun.

That's one thing I like about Hollywood. The writer is there revealed in his ultimate corruption. He asks no praise, because his praise comes to him in the form of a salary check. In Hollywood the average writer is not young, not honest, not brave, and a bit overdressed. But he is darn good company, which book writers as a rule are not. He is better than what he writes. Most book writers are not as good.