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

The moment a man begins to talk about technique that's proof that he is fresh out of ideas.

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

Mostly I just kill time," he said, "and it dies hard.

Tall, aren't you? I didn't mean to be.

At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.

Hollywood is a showman's paradise. But showmen make nothing; they exploit what someone else has made. The publisher and the play producer are showmen too; but they exploit what is already made. The showmen of Hollywood control the making - and thereby degrade it. For the basic art of motion pictures is the screenplay; it is fundamental, without it there is nothing. Everything derives from the screenplay, and most of that which derives is an applied skill which, however adept, is artistically not in the same class with the creation of a screenplay.