Secure writers don't sell first drafts. They patiently rewrite until the script is as director-ready, as actor-ready as possible. Unfinished work inv….

The Business story is designed to trigger the listener to take an effective action. If it doesn't, the story fails..

When talented people write badly, it's generally for one of two reasons: Either they're blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove of they're dr….

The principle of Creative Limitations calls for freedom within a circle of obstacles and restricted boundaries. Talent is like a muscle: without some….

To connect to people at the deepest level, you need stories..

Stories build cultures by answering the big questions..

It seems to me that the civilized human being is a skeptic someone who believes nothing at face value..

Of the total creative effort represented in a finished work, 75 percent or more of a writer's labor goes into designing the story designing story tes….

Don't be didactic - don't write about poverty. Write about poor people. When you dramatize their lives and let life and characters be your inspiratio….

Writing is a marathon, not a sprint..

Politics is the name we give to the orchestration of power in any society..

We rarely know where we are going; writing is a discovery..

The Law of Diminishing Returns is true of everything in life, except sex, which seems endlessly repeatable with effect..

When we want mood experiences, we go to concerts or museums. When we want meaningful emotional experience, we go to the storyteller..

Never sleep with anybody who has more problems than you do..

What happens is fact, not truth. Truth is what we think about what happens..

In comedy laughter settles all arguments..

All writing is discipline, but screenwriting is a drill sergeant..

No civilization, including Plato's, has ever been destroyed because its citizens learned too much..

In life two negatives don't make a positive. Double negatives turn positive only in math and formal logic. In life things just get worse and worse an….

Of all the reasons for wanting to write, the only one that nurtures us through time is love of the work itself..