I only know that I fired twice, or perhaps several times, without knowing whether I had hit or missed.

I aimed at the Archduke. I do not remember what I thought at that moment.

I am the son of peasants and I know what is happening in the villages. That is why I wanted to take revenge, and I regret nothing.

I only know that I fired twice, or perhaps several times, without knowing whether I had hit or missed.

It must be terribly lonely to be a king instead of a man.

One of the exciting things about reporting is going to places you've never been to before.

The original quality in any man of imagination is imagery.

'Cool-Hand Luke' is one of my favorite movies.

I really wanted it to be organic and coming from my heart. So, I think maybe the initial thought of wanting to go in that direction, I had to wait until things happened in our world and in our country that fired me up enough where the words came out organically.

I knew I'd always be a second-rate academic, and I thought, 'Well, I'd rather be a second-rate novelist or even a third-rate one'.

I am not concerned about getting reelected. I can make the unpopular but necessary decision. Your focus from day one is on your legacy rather than political considerations.

The most important advice I can offer is that writing is a craft that you can learn by practicing. If you keep writing, you will improve.

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.

Movies are hard work. The public doesn't see that. The critics don't see it. But they're a lot of work. A lot of work.

The only way to get to where you want to go is to ruthlessly evaluate your where you are now. The key here is that your biggest obstacle in life is always yourself—not external factors.

Conversion is a daily thing.

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

In question-and-answer sessions after a reading or during an interview, I forget the question if I'm giving too long an answer. And at the end, I can't remember any of the questions. The more anxious I am about remembering, the more likely I am to forget.

Once you get labelled, people expect you to behave within the very narrow confines of that label.

Adapted from the novel by L. Ron Hubbard, who cranked out sci-fi pulp by the cubic ton, 'Battlefield Earth' has the musty feel of the days when the genre's highlight was Flash Gordon.

I am an optimistic lady.

Part of growing up was learning not to be quite that honest learning when it was better to lie rather than to hurt someone with the truth.

One of my school friends' parents owned a minigolf course, and a bunch of us kids would play there all day in the summer. Two-under deuces was a good score.

I want people to know their palate is a snowflake. We all like different things. Why should we all have the same taste in wines?

I flew into New York for the Raising Arizona audition, and we just started joking around.

Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves

If you rewrite a paragraph fifty times and forty-nine of them are terrible, that's fine; you only need to get it right once.

Would 'sorry' have made any difference? Does it ever? It's just a word. One word against a thousand actions.