Your favorite story, whatever it might be, was written for one reader

You have to accept that the moment you hand a script to a director, even if you've written it as an original script, it becomes his or her movie. That's the way it has to be because the pressures on a director are so staggering and overwhelming that if he or she doesn't have that sort of level of decision making ability, that sort of free reign, the movie simply won't get done. It won't have a vision behind it. It may not be your vision as a screenwriter, but at least it will have a vision.

There are people who are put on this earth to do everything.

I knew I wanted to work in Cinemascope because I find it much more beautiful just in terms of the shape of the screen, the wider image, and it's also less like television, which is important.

It's funny when you put music up against picture, and all your preconceptions go away, and you start over. You just realize that that doesn't work at all.

You're not always right. You're often wrong. But at least you're looking at it as objectively as you can with as much experience as you can in the moment and saying, "Yeah, I think it's funny" or "No, I don't think it's funny yet."

You learn to do your best writing on story rather than off story. Very often at the beginning of their careers, writers including me do their best dialogue writing off story - the best lines, the best observations - but they haven't got enough to do with the plot to stay in.