It doesn't matter whether characters are real people or not; if they're not vivid on the page, then the reader doesn't care about them that much, and, if the reader doesn't care about them that much, then they don't care what happens to them.

Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.

I used to write a monthly column for the 'New York Times' syndicate. But I stopped because I found it really hard to have one extreme opinion a month. I don't know how these columnists have two or three ideas a week; I was having difficulty having 12 things to say a year.

Anyone who reads my work will see that there are often difficult relationships between fathers and sons.

Liberate yourself, because no one else is going to liberate you

The world is about the way in which our dreams intersect with our real life. Endlessly, the world of the imagination changes the world.

What I found interesting writing a screenplay as opposed to writing a novel is not the obvious thing, which is having to pare everything down and find the kind of essence, the skeleton if you like, which can then be fleshed out by performance and cinematography.