You can't take contradiction away. Part of the fun of it is that the contradiction never really quite goes away..

Screenplays are not works of art. They are invitations to others to collaborate on a work of art..

There's something wrong - the performance, the weather, the set design, the lighting. Something is not working. And so you say, "Give me 10 minutes."….

The clock is impotent; mechanical time does not affect those living in an eternal present..

There's no escape. I'm God's only man..

Words are a completely different form of expression. The word P-E-N-I-S is an entirely different form of communication than a photograph of the same ….

I would not have made any of my films or written scripts such as Taxi Driver had it not been for Ingmar Bergman, What he has left is a legacy greater….

Anything that doesn't bore me I think is doable because it's keeping me awake..

I teach a course in screenwriting at Columbia, but I've never taken a course and I've never read a book about it!.

Don't ever let the viewer settle in and get ahead of you..

You know, when you're in your twenties you use a great deal of symbolism. You somehow think that a character standing beneath a cross is more interes….

When you have people who are embarrassing themselves for a living, who are making themselves look foolish and vulnerable and emotional for a living, ….

You think it's a blessing to know what God wants? I'll tell you what he wants. He wants to push me over! Can't he see what's inside of me? All my sin….

That's just my disposition - to create a situation where you have to come up with something..

Those artists who say that somehow therapy or analysis will thwart their creativity are completely misinformed. It's absolutely the opposite: it open….

Contradiction is the heart and soul of character and drama. You're always looking for it. I loved her so much I hit her; that's character. I loved he….

I could be just a writer very easily. I am not a writer. I am a screenwriter, which is half a filmmaker... But it is not an art form, because screenp….

Nobody has shot a strip club in black and white in a long time..

There's the generation that made the rules, the generation that codified them. The generation that broke them - that's mine. The generation that laug….

Once you have a situation that is fresh, then you sort of believe in it and it becomes normal. So you do end up with protagonists that haven't been i….

Ultimately, it's an illusion that you can understand yourself..