Los Angeles is a city of few hard targets. Its iconic buildings are private spaces, mostly residential, visible by invitation only or in the pages of a Taschen book. Its central industry is as mirage-like as the projection of light on a screen.
When I'm working on a book, I constantly retype my own sentences. Every day I go back to page one and just retype what I have. It gets me into a rhythm.
I start a book and I want to make it perfect, want it to turn every color, want it to be the world. Ten pages in, I've already blown it, limited it, made it less, marred it. That's very discouraging. I hate the book at that point.
I have a lot of novels that I haven't finished. I usually get 150 pages in and I realize it's not going anywhere. I don't publish everything I write. I must have six unfinished novels at least.
I sublimate different parts of my personality through my characters. Which is worrying, as some of them can be a bit nasty. I'm pleased the stuff on the page isn't inside me any more.
In real life, people fumble their words. They repeat themselves and stare blankly off into space and don't listen properly to what other people are saying. I find that kind of speech fascinating but screenwriters never write dialogue like that becaus...
Most people travel with a good book, but I also keep my agenda with me; I'll flip through the pages and take a few moments to organize my life a little - I rarely get the time to do this normally.
Often when you get a really good script, and you receive the new pages, you see that the entire thing has been dumbed down. Films in the '30s and '40s, that were huge blockbusters, were very sophisticated in their language, and the ideas they brought...
Beetlejuice: Let's see, business section. [he flips to the obituary page of a newspaper] Beetlejuice: Ooh, la, la. What do we got here? The Maitlands, uh? Cute couple. Look nice and stupid, too.
Social thinking requires very exacting thresholds to be powerful. For example, we've had social thinking for 200,000 years, and hardly anything happened that could be considered progress over most of that time. This is because what is most pervasive ...
You write a book, and after 50 pages you think it's about one thing, and then you write another hundred and you realize it's about something else, and then by the time you're done, you can look back and say, 'Oh, this is what it's about.'
When you're on TV, you're looking at a half-page of material, trying to memorize it really quickly. By the time it's on TV, I've already forgotten what I said, but I can still recite my whole role from Shakespeare in the Park. It works a different se...
Some friends of mine bothered me for a long time about getting on the social networking pages. They were close friends that I liked to mess with, and I think that I kind of enjoyed for a while that it bothered them so much. Now they've just kind of g...
Gym traumaramas can happen to anyone. One time, I brought a packet of papers to read while jogging on the treadmill. Right when I was in the middle of my run, I dropped them and they flew everywhere! Pages went flying all over the place and got in th...
I just wish I got a quarter every time someone clicks on 'Little Women, Big Cars.' We had a 125-page script for this show. We used the creator's house to shoot. But it's expensive to do these shows. They're eventually not going to be able to get the ...
Most of the time, when I'm writing, I'm writing for myself. I'm thinking, 'What will my character say at this time? What will come out of her mouth?' I create individuals so real to me, I sometimes start talking to them. Then I let them loose on the ...
Whether I'm reading a national publication or one of my local Chicago newspapers, I don't need to turn too many pages before I stumble upon another scandal. Not only do ethics violations deteriorate the public trust, but they also disrupt and undermi...
John: Ringo, what are you up to? Ringo: [Ringo is sitting under a hairdryer wearing a beefeater's bearskin hat and reading a magazine] Page five! John: You always fancied yourself as a guardsman, didn't you?
Max Bialystock: [on "Springtime For Hitler"] ... It's practically a love-letter to Hitler! Leo Bloom: Wow. This play wouldn't run a NIGHT! Max Bialystock: A night? Are you kidding? This play's guaranteed to close on PAGE FOUR!
Lt. Doyle: Oh, Jeff, if you need any more help, consult the yellow pages in your telephone directory. Lisa: Oh, I love funny exit lines.
Stan: Wait, before we put a message out, do a search on the word clitoris. Kyle: Hmm OK Found: 8,000,000 pages found with the word clitoris.
