American Quotes

The judge is forced for the most part to reach his audience through the medium of the press whose reporting of judicial decisions is all too often inaccurate and superficial.

Courtrooms contain every symbol of authority that a set designer could imagine. Everyone stands up when you come in. You wear a costume identifying you as, if not quite divine, someone special.

The judicial system is the most expensive machine ever invented for finding out what happened and what to do about it.

Words signify man's refusal to accept the world as it is.

Rich men's sons are seldom rich men's fathers.

Only things the dreamers make live on. They are the eternal conquerors.

Makers of empire, they have fought for bigger things than crowns and higher seats than thrones.

Failure is only postponed success as long as courage 'coaches' ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory.

When I was born I owed twelve dollars.

When I invite a woman to dinner, I expect her to look at my face. That's the price she has to pay.

The kind of doctor I want is one who when he's not examining me is home studying medicine.

Satire is what closes on Saturday night.

Office hours are from 12 to 1 with an hour off for lunch.

I understand your new play is full of single entendres.

Epitaph for a dead waiter - God finally caught his eye.

At dramatic rehearsals, the only author that's better than an absent one is a dead one.

I like terra firma; the more firma, the less terra.

I have a lot of health anxiety.

I graduated from college in 1980.

I feel like I want to keep moving toward idiosyncracy. Personal, personal, personal.

I don't write genre stuff in any form. I'm not interested in it. I always try to do the opposite of that.

I don't think screenwriting is therapeutic. It's actually really, really hard for me. It's not an enjoyable process.

I do throw out a lot of ideas, and I forget completely about them.

I do have some theatrical background. I've written plays and seen plays and read plays. But I also read novels. One thing I don't read is screenplays.

I can talk endlessly about characters, or why someone did this or that, and what that dynamic and interaction is. I really love it, and I think that actors really respond positively to the fact that I like to talk about that stuff, because I'm not sure that all directors do.

I actually think I'm probably more interested in structure than most people who write screenplays, because I think about it.

Everything I've written is personal - it's the only way I know how to write.

Directing is a more pragmatic experience, where you have to deal with the restrictions of time and money that force you to make certain decisions you don't have to make when you're writing.

Before you start production, you have characters you have created without actors in mind, then all of a sudden you've got actors. They bring an enormous amount in creating these characters, and creating the dynamics between the characters that you've written.

As a kid, I had a background in theater.