If you write beautifully, you write beautifully, that's all.

I find it very difficult to live through the censorship of profanity on television.

I suppose we think euphemistically that all writers write because they have something to say that is truthful and honest and pointed and important. And I suppose I subscribe to that, too. But God knows when I look back over thirty years of professional writing, I'm hard-pressed to come up with anything that's important. Some things are literate, some things are interesting, some things are classy, but very damn little is important.

The ultimate obscenity is not caring, not doing something about what you feel, not feeling! Just drawing back and drawing in; becoming narcissistic.

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.

I guess Requiem for a Heavyweight as old as it is was as honest a piece as I've ever done.

Whenever you write, whatever you write, never make the mistake of assuming the audience is any less intelligent than you are.