It kills me when people talk about California hedonism. Anybody who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento.

I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.

To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, singular power of self-respect.

New York was no mere city. It was instead an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself.

Was it only by dreaming or writing that I could find out what I thought?

I'm not sure I have the physical strength to undertake a novel.

Strength is one of those things you're supposed to have. You don't feel that you have it at the time you're going through it.

Grammar is a piano I play by ear. All I know about grammar is its power.

Before I'd written movies, I never could do big set-piece scenes with a lot of different speakers - when you've got twelve people around a dinner table talking at cross purposes. I had always been impressed by other people's ability to do that.