I like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin.

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

Writers who get written about become self-conscious. They develop a regrettable habit of looking at themselves through the eyes of other people. They are no longer alone, they have an investment in critical praise, and they think they must protect it. This leads to a diffusion of effort. The writer watches himself as he works. He grows more subtle and he pays for it by loss of organic dash.

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

The making of a picture ought surely to be a rather fascinating adventure. It is not; it is an endless contention of tawdry egos, some of them powerful, almost all of them vociferous, and almost none of them capable of anything much more creative than credit-stealing and self-promotion.

An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence.

He sounded like a man who had slept well and didn't owe too much money.