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.

When I dig back through memory cells, I get one particularly distinctive feeling-and that's one of warmth, comfort and well-being. For whatever else I may have had, or lost, or will find-I've still got a hometown. This, nobody's gonna take away from me.

I think the destiny of all men is not to sit in the rubble of their own making but to reach out for an ultimate perfection which is to be had. At the moment, it is a dream. But as of the moment we clasp hands with our neighbor, we build the first span to bridge the gap between the young and the old. At this hour, it’s a wish. But we have it within our power to make it a reality. If you want to prove that God is not dead, first prove that man is alive.

You could do much more in movies than you could on TV, and even movies were heavily censored. But in television, the areas of timorousness were fairly laid out. Race relations. Sex. Politics. There was a whole conglomeration of taboo themes. And even to date, though television has become a much freer medium, it's still far less free, far less creatively untrammeled than are the movies. They're infinitely more adult in that respect.

I don't enjoy any of the process of writing. I enjoy it when it goes on if it zings and it has great warmth and import and it's successful.

Every writer is a frustrated actor who recites his lines in the hidden auditorium of his skull.

There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition.