A good writer is not someone who knows how to write- but how to rewrite

Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

i have come to terms with my life, and that is my affair - i am not cold, i swear, but i have decided certain things, it is best for me to ignore emotion; i have not been happy dealing with it.

People don't remember me. Really. It's not a paranoid thing; I just have this habit of slipping through memories. It doesn't bother me all that much, except I guess that's a lie; it does. For some reason, I test very high on forgettability.

I can't keep my head above water one minute to the next: it's not just the parties and the goo-gooing with what's-her-name, I've got the decide how long the Five Hundredth Anniversary Parade is going to be and where does it start and when does it start and which nobleman gets to march in front of which other nobleman so that everyone's still speaking to me at the end of it, plus I've got a wife to murder and a country to frame for it, plus I've got to get the war going once that's all happened, and all this is stuff I've got to do myself. Here's what it all comes down to: I'm just swamped, Ty.

You don't want to be rude but you have to be careful - there are a lot of strange people out there. (Goldman attributes this quote to Cliff Robertson.)

Being a screenwriter is not enough for a full creative life.