I'm a Golden Globe nominee, yes. It's very nice. It's a very nice thing, but I kind of think of all the awards I wasn't ever nominated for, for years and things.

I mean when the play was on in New York I was starting to get film offers coming through, and since the film's come out I get offered more than I used to, but it happens incrementally.

But I think the thing I'm proud of about the film is that there aren't many films - either independent films or mainstream Hollywood films - that are like this; it's of its own times, and it's the film Mike Nichols wanted to make.

I used to go with my parents and loved it, I was in school plays, and I started reading plays before I started reading novels. I'll defend it to the hilt. When theatre is good it is fabulous.

I hoped the dramatic power of the play would rest on that tension between elegant structure - the underlying plan is that you see the first and last meeting of every couple in the play - and inelegant emotion.

Theatre is how I first encountered art on any level.

But I'm the sort of person who, if certain structures topple, it could all go horribly wrong.

I know it's a film and all of that, and it's a Hollywood film, but it kind of feels like this sometimes, when you're in pain and it hurts, and you're desperate. Or you are about to cross some moral line and it's so seductive and you just do... and all that.

Well, you just know, as a writer, I didn't really write one of the five best screenplays of the year. There were lots of brilliant screenplays; I was just one of the lucky ones who got nominated.

When I look back I can't believe I was so stupid as to direct Dealer's Choice.

Always when I directed the play, I was always trying to cast people not who were necessarily like the characters, but people who I felt had the essential component that the character had, some kind of soul for it.

It doesn't really feel like it's got anything to do with me. I mean, I know I wrote it, and all that and invented the characters and made it up, but it's Mike's film, so doing the press and stuff, it feels a little bit inauthentic. I was just one component of it.

I'm constantly having to be vigilant with a depressive tendency, an addictive tendency.

The trite answer is that everything is true but none of it happened. It is emotionally true, but the events, the plotting, the narrative, isn't true of my life, though I've experienced most of the emotions experienced by the characters in the play.

When you're in your early 20s your love life seems to explode every 20 minutes or so. By the time you've reached your thirties, it is every five or ten years.

I'm a happily married man and I think to get married you have to be optimistic.

It's one of the reasons I don't do drugs. One sniff and I'd go all the way.

I'm a Golden Globe nominee, yes. It's very nice. It's a very nice thing, but I kind of think of all the awards I wasn't ever nominated for, for years and things.

A couple of flop plays, a death in the family, and it could all collapse.

I like them all - I don't always approve. I see myself as a sort of benevolent uncle to these characters, and I can see why they do what they do; sometimes they make some mistakes, but at heart I think they're decent.

Awards are only a publicity gimmick.

Awards were made in Hollywood, in whatever the time it was created. They're to promote each other's movies. You give me an award, I give you an award and people will believe that we are great movies and they'll go to see them. It's still the same.

A couple of guys won Academy Awards for the things that I turned down. Today, after coming to terms with everything, after being in therapy for a long time-there are areas where I will compromise.

To my mind, the most important aspect of the Nobel Awards is that they bring home to the masses of the peoples of all nations, a realization of their common interests. They carry to those who have no direct contact with science the international spirit.

Great, big, serious novels always get awards. If it's a battle between a great, big, serious novel and a funny novel, the funny novel is doomed.

Smith and Carlos aside, I object to using the Olympic awards stand to make a political statement.

My friend made me a leather dress for the MTV awards. It gives you confidence, wearing something you love.

If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit Awards.

The flattery is nice, but awards don't add up to writing quality songs.

Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.

Awards are so unnecessary, because I think we get so much out of our work just by doing it. The work is a reward in itself.

A lot of my joy this year has been to give away awards to young people, no matter of race, creed or color, because they were a terrific violinist or a terrific dancer.

The Nobel awards should be regarded as giving recognition to this general scientific progress as well as to the individuals involved.

I think I've done pretty well. I've had about 46, or 47 nominations from my movies, and my films have won about 12 awards, so I don't have any complaints.

It's very validating when you are new in the industry to get awards. It boosts your self-esteem.

Also, I've already won all the awards.

I dress up for awards, but only if somebody else is going to pay for the clothes. And shop for them, too!

Awards don't really mean much.

I've never been in this business for the recognition or the awards. I just want to do good work, grab a decent paycheck, and move onto the next job.

Between speeches and awards, you can find something to do every other week. It's hard to write. Your focus gets splintered. Once you put one thing in your calendar, that month is gone.

It wasn't on my agenda, but the thing about getting important awards is it makes the adventure of your career have a little more possibility. I think just what's happened so far is already making the opportunities more interesting, even though I'm at the twilight of my career of like 48 years.

Up there with my awards, I have a great big statue of Groucho Marx, just to put everything in perspective.

I love awards, especially if I get them.

Cameron Diaz was so cute at the MTV Movie Awards when she pulled her skirt up and wiped her armpits.

I don't have role models or watch much TV. I go to awards ceremonies but often I don't even know who the people are. I think that's good, because then you don't have preconceived ideas about them.

I want everybody who is watching to come to the Academy Awards with us. I'm going to pay for the bus.

Me and my partner, Conway Twitty, cleaned up at the 1972 Country Music Association Awards.

I never wore glasses except when I had to read a teleprompter at an awards show or drive, so I didn't notice much. I could exist in my head. It was kind of my escape from the world and my protection.

You know, Equal Interest played at the Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival Awards and not one musician from that category was even thought of. Even thought of! The idea, that here's this vital energy, and that element doesn't even know it exists!