Stars wide of belt often cultivated a gentlemanly grandeur, a groomed refinement that filtered through their fingertips - the dainty fidgets of Hardy's plump digits, Orson Welles performing magic tricks with nimble dexterity, Jackie Gleason lofting a...
As a lawyer, as a private citizen, you see a lot of injustice. You see a lot of people who should have been punished and are not, and people who were punished wrongfully are not vindicated. Fiction is sort of a way to set the record straight, and let...
If you set goals for yourself, and you're like a lot of other people, you probably realize it's not that your goals are physically impossible that's keeping you from achieving them; it's that you lack the self-discipline to stick to them. It's physic...
Who decides what is and what isn't punk? I want to write songs that people hear and feel, and I want to be successful and reach a big audience. I'm not trying to be the coolest guy in the world; I'm trying to write songs that mean something to people...
The basis of drama is ... is the struggle of the hero towards a specific goal at the end of which he realizes that what kept him from it was, in the lesser drama, civilization and, in the great drama, the discovery of something that he did not set ou...
if Jesus had stooped to play politics he might have become a key man in Roman Judea, a big operator. It was because he was indifferent to politics, and made his indifference clear, that he was liquidated. How to live one's life outside politics, and ...
I often put any project I write in a different decade just to roll the thought around in my head. There's a thriller I've written that I think would be nice to set in the '70s or '80s, just to take cell phones away from the movie. There's nothing lik...
Woodworking requires a completely different kind of thinking and problem-solving ability than writing. With writing, you take a set of facts and ideas, and you reason your way forward to a story that pulls them together. With woodworking, you start w...
I grew up on movie sets, so it was something I just found familiar. When I was growing up also, in high school, I would audition for things and my parents let me audition for things - with the thought that I wouldn't get them. And then I would get th...
Playing a show is a monumental hassle. You've got to schlep all your heavy equipment into the van, then you've got to drive for five hours, then you have to schlep all the heavy equipment out of the van, onto the stage, set it up, do the sound check,...
Political elites vote in a more partisan fashion than the mass public; this tendency, too, follows a curve. The more you know, the more likely you are to vote in an ideologically consistent way, not just following your party but following a set of co...
With a book called 'Keeping Score,' I really did want to write a book about the Korean War, because I felt that it is the least understood war in the American cultural imagination. So I set out with the idea that Americans didn't know much about the ...
I have never successfully written in the third person. If there's a rhythm or a musicality that interests me, I become obsessed with the character, and I just have this need to spend time with him or her. Sometimes I'll be in the park playing ball, a...
People book me because of the songs I write, not because of the sets that I play, per se... I'm sure I'm going to be moving to a laptop really soon, but I was one of the last guys to let the vinyl go. I was crying. In my room, I still have thousands ...
Since I'm a story-oriented critic, sometimes it's difficult to discuss issues without defining them. At the same time, I try not to give away anything that hasn't been given away in first half, in TV commercials, or that isn't obvious from the set-up...
Mickey Ward: Why can't you just shut up and be happy for me? I spent the last ten years of my life in bad fights set up by you and Alice. I finally got a good thing going for me and you can't be fuckin' happy for me? Why?
Blake: We're adding a little something to this month's sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? [Holds up prize] Blake: Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired.
[as they set out across the desert] Tuco: What was it you told me the last time? Ah, yes..."If you save your breath I feel a man like you can manage it." And if you won't manage it, you'll die... only slowly. *Very* slowly, old friend.
Raymond Shaw: My dear girl, have you ever noticed that the human race is divided into two distinct and irreconcilable groups: those that walk into rooms and automatically turn television sets on, and those that walk into rooms and automatically turn ...
Isaac Davis: This is so antiseptic. It's empty. Why do you think this is funny? You're going by audience reaction? This is an audience that's raised on television, their standards have been systematically lowered over the years. These guys sit in fro...
Duke Forrest: [Hawkeye stands beside a Jeep. Duke assumes he is the driver] Uh, 4077 M*A*S*H? Hawkeye Pierce: This is the Jeep, yeah. Duke Forrest: [Sets in his bag then gets in] 'Kay, let's go, boy. Get my other bag. Hawkeye Pierce: Yes, sir. Yes, s...
