If you have the temerity to try to dramatize a theme that involves any particular social controversy currently extant. . . then you're in deep trouble.

Infinitely more taboos, on television.

Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man, that state is obsolete.

The writer's role is to menace the public's conscience. He must have a position, a point of view. He must see the arts as a vehicle of social criticism and he must focus on the issues of his time.

Writers vary tremendously. Was it Tom Wolfe who stood up or was it [Ernest] Hemingway who had to stand up? I don't know.

I think I'd rather win, for example, a Writer's Guild award than almost anything on earth. And the few nominations I've had with the guild, and the few awards I've had, represented to me a far more legitimate concrete achievement than anything.

Just drawing back and drawing in; becoming narcissistic.