For if there were a list of cosmic things that unite us, reader and writer, visible as it scrolled up into the distance, like the introduction to some epic science-fiction film, then shining brightly on that list would be the fact that we exist in a ...
Each actor is different. When I did 'Misery,' Kathy Bates, who's a stage trained actress, loves lots of rehearsal. Jimmy Caan, who basically grew up on films, likes no rehearsal. He wants to just get in there, and whatever happens at the moment, it h...
When I'm travelling, I always take my little notebook and scribble things down as I watch them; I'm very much geared to everything that's happening. Whereas, the diary I keep is just about a record of a day I've spent. When I'm filming, I'm looking q...
I never thought I was particularly good looking. But when I see old photographs, I realise that I was. I do wish I had known that at the time because beauty is power. I didn't realise how lucky I was to be young, beautiful and in Hollywood. It didn't...
Everyone talks about how we're on our phones all the time, but the fact remains that when I'm away on a film set for two months, I can Skype my family. I remember the phone calls my parents had to make when my dad was away for a while when I was youn...
Inspiration comes from so many sources. Music, other fiction, the non-fiction I read, TV shows, films, news reports, people I know, stories I hear, misheard words or lyrics, dreams... Motivation? The memory of the rush I get from a really good writin...
I wanted to become a director before I wanted to become a writer. When I was 10, people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I said, 'Walt Disney.' I wanted to make films. But I wasn't offered a camera. I was offered language. So I st...
Personally I am very pessimistic. But when, for instance, one of my staff has a baby you can't help but bless them for a good future. Because I can't tell that child, 'Oh, you shouldn't have come into this life.' And yet I know the world is heading i...
It's like that Simpsons joke - they're filming a cow in a movie and they go, 'OK, we'll tape a bunch of cats together to make a cow', and it's like, 'Why don't you just use a cow?'. For some reason that is novel - like, 'Oh, my guitar sounds like a p...
I flopped on the overstuffed kitchen couch and watched him go. I wondered what would happen to all his films and photographs in the upstairs closet - the documentaries on homelessness and drug addiction, the funny short subjects, the half-finished ro...
There’s a chasm between writing about yourself and writing about your personal life. A lot of young writers want to turn their lives into stories, into films, books, because they feel their lives are somehow significant. But really, it’s not thei...
Contrary to popular belief, the past was not more eventful than the present. If seems so it is because when you look backward things that happened years apart are telescoped together, and because very few of your memories come to you genuinely virgin...
I don't think I've ever seen him in a movie theater! I've only seen him on TV. Wow, that's so silly of me! We only saw one of his films together, it was with a group of people, and when he kissed Deborah Kerr, I jumped off the couch and I ran up and ...
Ninety-nine per cent of traditional English literature concerns people who never have to worry about money at all. We always seem to be watching or reading about emotional crises among folk who live in a world of great fortune both in matters of luck...
[223 leaves the store] He Zhiwu, Cop 223: Somehow everything comes with an expiry date. Swordfish expires. Meat sauce expires. Even cling-film expires. Is there anything in the world which doesn't? [223 gives a can of pineapple to a passing street pe...
[about halfway through the film; Nicky has just calmed Ginger down after Lester was beat up by her husband's thugs] Nicky Santoro: [about her drinking] And take it easy with this shit, will you? I mean, this can only make matters worse. You're a beau...
Wikus Van De Merwe: Oh! I haven't shown you a picture of my wife! Here she is, my angel. I tell people she actually looks like an angel, you see here? The white looks like a halo on her head. Can you see that? She's my angel, you're picking that up o...
Dr. Anne Eastman: Hey, Do you have a particular interest in our paitient's X-Rays? Dr. Richard Kimble: What do you mean? Dr. Anne Eastman: I saw you looking at that boy's chest film. Dr. Richard Kimble: It's a hobby of mine. Dr. Anne Eastman: It's a ...
Frederick: You missed a very dull TV show on Auschwitz. More gruesome film clips, and more puzzled intellectuals declaring their mystification over the systematic murder of millions. The reason they can never answer the question "How could it possibl...
I write back to every fan who writes me, which is kind of a full-time job in some regards 'cause I don't want people to wait too long . So I get up very early in the morning and try to rip through all of them. I pretty much sleep four hours a night. ...
[to Charlie] Robert McKee: I'll tell you a secret. The last act makes a film. Wow them in the end, and you got a hit. You can have flaws, problems, but wow them in the end, and you've got a hit. Find an ending, but don't cheat, and don't you dare bri...
