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 impulse to perfection cannot exist where the definition of perfection is the arbitrary decision of authority. That which is born in loneliness and from the heart cannot be defended against the judgment of a committee of sycophants. The volatile essences which make literature cannot survive the clichés of a long series of story conferences.

I like bars just after they open in the evening. When the air inside is still cool and clean and everything is shiny. The first quiet drink of the evening in a quiet bar -- that's wonderful.

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

The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.

I'm in a wild mood tonight. I want to go dance in the foam. I hear the banshees calling.

Its big men are mostly little men with fancy offices and a lot of money. A great many of them are stupid little men, with reach-me-down brains, small-town arrogance and a sort of animal knack of smelling out the taste of the stupidest part of the public. They have played in luck so long that they have come to mistake luck for enlightenment." - on Hollywood