The mark of a master is to select only a few moments, but give us a lifetime.

Oh, by the way, I tend to use a lot of profanities. I do that for a reason: I like it.

All writing is discipline, but screenwriting is a drill sergeant.

Whereas life separates meaning from emotion, art unites them. Story is an instrument by which you create such epiphanies at will, the phenomenon known as aesthetic emotion...Life on its own, without art to shape it, leaves you in confusion and chaos, but aesthetic emotion harmonizes what you know with what you feel to give you a heightened awareness and a sureness of your place in reality.

Classical design is a mirror of the human mind. It's how we see the world.

Influence is just persuasion in slow motion.

Story is about originality, not duplication