Relative to the power that movie stars have, and producers and directors, I would say that even the most respected screenwriters have very little power in Hollywood. I don't think it's in the nature of the writer's profession to go after that power. Writers spend their time alone, hallucinating, writing, making these things up, while these other people are out schmoozing, making connections, meeting each other. They are trotting the corridors of power and making sure they've put their own imprints in it. And they're promoting themselves and their images, as they should.

I think Los Angeles certainly grew out and grew up, but I don't think it matured. It lost the appeal and the hunger and the beauty of its adolescence and went straight to a middle-aged ugly, overfed monster seeking mindless pleasure and being obsessively acquisitive. It's so materialistic. It grew up, but it didn't mature.

In dramatic writing, the very essence is character change. The character at the end is not the same as he was at the beginning. He's changed-psychologically, maybe even physically.

And I think one way or another it's evident to those who work with me that as a writer, a director, a friend, as somebody's there that's very anxious to get the movie made.

But time has caught up with it and I think vindicated it. Shampoo, too: very dark, very ambitious movie.

If you can find meaning in the type of running you need todo to stay on this team, chances are you can find meaning in another absurd pastime: Life.

Black pride. Gay pride. White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant pride. All of these things, you know, they're polarized, aren't they? The red and blue states. Christians, that's the most insidious aspect of it, giving into this great Christian image of America. That's the most frightening thing of all. Whereas in the past they're trying to find things that unite us, to minimize the differences. Whereas today there's this belief in empowerment and entitlement by maximizing differences. I'm not so sure that that's healthy.