Meanwhile, politics is about getting a candidate in front of the public as a star, politics as rock'n'roll, politics as a movie.

My father could have been deported because on his immigration application he said that he was a printer, obviously because he didn't want them to be checking his writings.

I was a militant smoker, and in my case, I think I particularly used smoking because what I felt was a kind of politically correct big brother assault on smoking.

I had read too many memoirs that were written after the writer or the director was past his or her prime.

I have my own religious bond with the God in my own head.

There are no crowds out there demanding to see smoking scenes in movies.

I just wanted to make sure that what I write is what appears on screen, to not have some idiot change it on its way to the screen.

From what I've been able to determine, many of our big stars are addicted to tobacco. They want to smoke in movies for the same reason I smoked as I wrote, which is that they think their performance is going to be better.

The terrible, diabolic thing with this disease is that you are always looking behind your shoulder every couple months with the most recent checkup to see whether there is any sign of it, and I thank God to say at this point there is not.

I have only one loyalty - to my writing. I never wanted to be the head of a studio or a producer.

Fact is we went on to do other things. But we still wanted to do our success like rock'n'roll stars.

Meanwhile, politics is about getting a candidate in front of the public as a star, politics as rock'n'roll, politics as a movie.

I was six when we came to this country. When I was 14 or so, I still had a lot of trouble with it.

Every time I flicked channels, there I was, talking. I was talking too much and writing too little. So Naomi and I went to Hawaii. The phone was cut off and we lost touch. This gave me the chance to have a good think about my life.

And the inner dynamics of Hollywood are like politics. Say you give a script to a group of executives - they all sit around, afraid to voice an opinion, saying nothing, waiting to know what the consensus is. Just like focus groups, opinion polls or a cabinet.

I worry that we are approaching a time when that which is shocking is squeezed out by the Stalinism of political correctness.

I have always been fascinated by the corruption of power.

The studios have been taken over by marketing people and accountants.

I always wanted to be a rock'n'roll star.

From a writing point of view, you now have teams of screenwriters working with a director. What's lost in the process is the power of that one heart, brain, gut and soul that makes something an original piece of writing.

Cigarettes are not a part of human behaviour, they are a habit.

That's sort of what I felt... I miss drinking, I thought bars were truly holy places.

Politics has become entertainment.

Now on a personal level with things like the California Tax Commission... I really think if people started banding together and saying no to this it could snowball and that could really help.

We aim in the domain of politics at republicanism; in the domain of economics at socialism; in the domain of what is today called religion, at atheism.

I have come to realize that Jesse Helms stands for everything in politics that is anathema to me.

Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It's too controversial.

I'm not an old, experienced hand at politics. But I am now seasoned enough to have learned that the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.

We live in a world in which politics has replaced philosophy.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

Hope springs eternal, even in politics.

Politics is about winning. If you don't win, you don't get to put your principles into practice. Therefore, find a way to win, or sit the battle out.

I don't think at my age... you can start ruling people out in politics.

The new generation of Labour is different. Different attitudes, different ideas, different ways of doing politics.

The world of politics is always twenty years behind the world of thought.

A politics that is not sensitive to the concerns and circumstances of people's lives, a politics that does not speak to and include people, is an intellectually arrogant politics that deserves to fail.

The challenge is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible.

Politics is the enemy of the imagination.

In almost every country there are elements of opinion which would welcome such a conclusion because they wish to return to the politics of the balance of power, unrestricted and unregulated armaments, international anarchy, and preparation for war.

Even if we don't know it or aren't aware of it, politics and philosophy are really what make our up lives.

So begins a question which has of late become more and more urgent: what is the relation of aesthetics to politics?

The Olympics are coming... and it's a big problem in American politics, because the problem with holding the Olympics this fall is that we're all going to be focused on the Olympics, and it makes that window of opportunity for Gore to win the election that much smaller.

A promising young man should go into politics so that he can go on promising for the rest of his life.

Politics is too partisan, and sometimes patriotism is cast aside. Patriotism is honor and love of your country and your brothers and sisters. With politics I get the impression that it's all about what's good for the party and not necessarily what's good for the country.

I'm always rather nervous about how you talk about women who are active in politics, whether they want to be talked about as women or as politicians.

I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.

My objection to Liberalism is this that it is the introduction into the practical business of life of the highest kind namely, politics of philosophical ideas instead of political principles.

Women have more to prove than men when it comes to politics.

Religion is organized to satisfy and guide the soul - politics does the same thing for the body.