In a world we find terrifying, we ratify that which doesn't threaten us.

A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.

We respond to a drama to that extent to which it corresponds to our dreamlife.

I grew up in a tough neighborhood and we used to say you can get further with a kind word and a gun than just a kind word.

The product of the artist has become less important than the fact of the artist. We wish to absorb this person. We wish to devour someone who has experienced the tragic. In our society this person is much more important than anything he might create.

Films have degenerated to their original operation as carnival amusement - they offer not drama but thrills.

It's only words... unless they're true.

In a world we find terrifying, we ratify that which doesn't threaten us.

I always thought the real violence in Hollywood isn't what's on the screen. It's what you have to do to raise the money.

People may or may not say what they mean... but they always say something designed to get what they want.

The surprise is half the battle. Many things are half the battle, losing is half the battle. Let's think about what's the whole battle.

Always tell the truth - it's the easiest thing to remember.

Every reiteration of the idea that nothing matters debases the human spirit.

I hate vacations. There's nothing to do.

Policemen so cherish their status as keepers of the peace and protectors of the public that they have occasionally been known to beat to death those citizens or groups who question that status.

A liberal pretending to be a conservative? That's like a straight person pretending to be gay to get greater acceptance.

A play is basically a long, formalistic polemic. You can write it without the poetry, and if you do, you may have a pretty good play. We know this because we see plays in translation. Not many people speak Norwegian or Danish or whatever guys like Ibsen spoke, or Russian - yet we understand Chekhov and the others.

A stage play is basically a form of uber-schizophrenia. You split yourself into two minds - one being the protagonist and the other being the antagonist. The playwright also splits himself into two other minds: the mind of the writer and the mind of the audience.

American football seems to resemble soccer in that one scores by putting the ball through the opponent's goal; but football, truly is about land. The Settlers want to move the line of scrimmage Westward, the Native Americans want to move it East.

Art and mass entertainment and propaganda, they can all be plotted on the same graph, but there is a difference.

Being among my people is a delight. We Jews live among ourselves. I love it.

Conservatives believe in smaller government and in the power of the electorate. So I think that we're less likely to try to use a dramatic forum to warp people's political views.

Culture exists and evolves to relegate to habit categories of interactions the constant conscious reference to which would make human interaction impossible.

Each culture has its own form of staged combat, evolved from its particular method of street fighting and cleaned up for presentation as a spectacle, e.g. savate, Cornish wrestling, karate, kung-fu.

Here's what happens in a play. You get involved in a situation where something is unbalanced. If nothing's unbalanced, there's no reason to have a play. If Hamlet comes home from school, and his dad's not dead and asks him if he's had a good time, it's boring. But if something's unbalanced, it must be returned to order.

I didn't knowingly meet a conservative until, to my shame, I was 60 years old and sat down and said, 'Wow, I don't understand what this guy's talking about, but he has a great civility about him. Perhaps I better investigate this thing.'

I don't really have a social life.

I don't think there's any information to be gotten from television.

I hate the computer. I hate their spell-check. I won't ever do e-mail.

I know very well what it is to be out of work and to be cheated by employers and I know what it is to be an employer.

I like Bach. I like Randy Newman.

I look back on my liberal political beliefs with a sort of wonder - as another exercise in self-involvement - rewarding myself for some superiority I could not logically describe.

I look back upon my Liberal political beliefs with a sort of wonder - as another exercise in self-involvement - rewarding myself for some superiority I could not logically describe.

I love all insider memoirs. It doesn't matter whether it's truck-drivers or doctors. I think everybody likes to go backstage, find out what people think and what they talk about and what specialised job they have.

I love the British.

I love working on a typewriter - the rhythm, the sound; it's like playing the piano, which I do, too.

I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.

I understand that computers, which I once believed to be but a hermaphrodite typewriter-cum-filing cabinet, offer the cyber literate increased ability to communicate. I do not think this is altogether a bad thing, however it may appear on the surface.

I used to think I'd like to be a fireman - in fact, I still would - and the only drawback I could see was coming back to the firehouse, after a day of fighting fires, and still having to put in an eight-hour day writing.

I was fortunate enough to have a rambling youth.

I won't ever do e-mail.

I'm afraid of only two things: being lazy and being cowardly.

I'm afraid of only two things: being lazy and being cowardly. I get up early in the morning and go to work. I love to write.

I'm entitled to my political opinions, and I get to vote because I'm an American.

I'm greedy and ambitious like everybody else.

I'm not an ascetic.

I'm not the guy to ask about politics. I'm a gag writer.

I've always been fascinated by the picaresque.

I've always been more comfortable sinking while clutching a good theory than swimming with an ugly fact.