“Young screenwriters are always very frustrated when they talk to me. They say, 'How do we get to be a screenwriter?' I say, 'You know what you do? I'll tell you the secret, it's easy: Read '...”

“I love novels, but I'm not a novelist. I'm just a dramatist, which means I write lines for actors. That's all I have ever wanted to do.”

“I fell in love with Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power and Basil Rathbone and Hitchcock and Orson Welles and John Huston.”

“That's the choice. I love him, with all that, because of all that. On purpose. I love him on purpose.”

“History, huh?”

“When I was your age, art was a lonely thing: no galleries, no collecting, no critics, no money. We didn't have mentors. We didn't have parents. We were alone. But it was a great time, becaus...”