American Screenwriter Quotes

I always grieve for the poor souls who have to grind out a daily humorous column or a weekly piece.

Dysphagia is the medical term for not being able to swallow, and I know that there are two kinds of dysphagia: oropharyngeal and esophageal. But maybe there is also a third kind of dysphagia that comes when your heart breaks into pieces. I can't swallow because I have that kind.

Holly Goldberg Sloan

Look, it's moving. It's alive, it's alive, it's alive. It's moving. It's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive!

Pay minimum wage, you get minimum work. Nobody seems to get that.

The Great Actor always must act. … Every last second of his life must be pose and posture.

Lionel Barrymore

Critics have never been able to discover a unifying theme in my films. For thatmatter, neither have I.

His mane was like a crest, mounting, then falling low. His neck was long and slender, and arched to the small, savagely beautiful head. The head was that of the wildest of all wild creatures- a stallion born wild- and it was beautiful, savage, splendid. A stallion with a wonderful physical perfection that matched his savage, ruthless spirit.

There was laughter in the back of the theatre, leading to the belief that someone was telling jokes back there.

George S. Kaufman

And do not be paralyzed. It is better to move than to be unable to move, because you fear loss so much: loss of order, loss of security, loss of predictability.

Talent without craft is like fuel without an engine, it burns wildly but accomplishes nothing.

We all lead more pedestrian lives than we think we do. The boiling of an egg is sometimes more important than the boiling of a love affair in the end.

Lillian Hellman

Lying became part of my life. I lied if I needed to lie to get something or get out of something

Attention vermin, you are in the presence of a colossus.

A man who is not touched by the earthy lyricism of hot pastrami, the pungent fantasy of corned beef, pickles, frankfurters, the great lusty impertinence of good mustard is a man of stone and without heart.

Howard Beale is processed, instant God, and right now it looks like he might just go over bigger than Mary Tyler Moore.

Paddy Chayefsky

I've been obsessed with this kind of visual storytelling for quite a while, and I try to create material that allows me to explore it.

As long as the protagonist wants something, the audience will want something.

Hawai'i has often been called a melting pot, but I think of it more as a 'mixed plate'—a scoop of rice with gravy, a scoop of macaroni salad, a piece of mahi-mahi, and a side of kimchi. Many different tastes share the plate, but none of them lose their individual flavor, and together they make up a uniquely 'local' cuisine. This is also, I believe, what America is at its best—a whole greater than the sum of it's parts.

Before Me you are a slug in the sun. You are privy to a great Becoming and you recognize nothing. You are an ant in the after-birth.It is in your nature to do one thing correctly: before Me you rightly tremble. Fear is not what you owe Me, Lounds, you and the other pismires. You owe Me awe.

You grow weary of being treated as the enemy simply because you are not young anymore; because you dress unexceptionally.

Michael Cunningham

And the most dangerous place on earth— Is where you're safe.

Hilda's eye, roaming over the folded newspaper, fell on the weather forecast. "Fair to-morrow," she said, "and colder." "That doesn't stand for much. They said the same thing yesterday. It's a worse gamble than wheat."

Samuel Merwin (writer)

Indecisiveness and procrastination are the chosen ways of life for most people. They follow the course of least resistance, which is to do nothing. This provides a security blanket of never being wrong, never making mistakes, never being disappointed and never failing. But they will also never succeed.

People come to Washington believing it's the centre of power. I know I did. It was only much later that I learned that Washington is a steering wheel that's not connected to the engine.

Richard N. Goodwin

Real Men no longer drive Corvettes. Despite being able to squander gas with the best of them, even today's least enlightened Real Man finds the notion of a $17,000 plastic car with no trunk somewhat absurd.

Bruce Feirstein