One of my great breaks is I have only done work I wanted to do.
— William Goldman
I don't want the power. When a project is given to me, and I say yes, I'm gonna oblige everybody who has the power to try to make it work.
It's always true, and in all the arts. When one guy's terrific, there will be a lot of other terrific guys around. And this last decade, the '90s, has been a period of very low talent.
We had terrible trouble finding a Buttercup because she had to be so beautiful. We had all kinds of pretty girls come in, but they weren't this staggering thing.
I haven't done much rereading or rewatching stuff I've written over the years, but I did look at 'Misery' before I started the play. I liked it. Not much I would change.
Yes, I am a failed playwright. I had three shows on Broadway by the time I was 30. They all flopped, and I fled.
Nobody knows anything.
The easiest thing to do on earth is not write.
Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.
There's only three movies I've been involved with in my whole life that I really care about. 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' was one, and 'Princess Bride' was the second, and 'Hearts in Atlantis' is the third.
Hollywood is a pretty edgy place.
If you think of human experience as a pie, then the wedge Hollywood is reflecting now is getting smaller and smaller.
I had two little daughters - I think they were 7 and 4 at the time - and I said, 'I'll write you a story. What do you want it to be about?' One of them said 'a princess' and the other one said 'a bride.' I said, 'That'll be the title.'
Never argue with your wife about hostility when she's a certified Freudian.
One way an author dies a little each day is when his books go out of print.
You can never trust what you read.
We are men of action, lies do not become us.
Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.
If you're going to abridge a book in the author's own words, you can't go sticking your own in.
Coming from where I came from, the Midwest, in the era I was born, the '30s, movies were glorious fun - Bette Davis dying or whatever. But whatever they were, they were not serious.
Writing is finally about one thing: going into a room alone and doing it, putting words on paper that have never been there in quite that way before.
Stephen King is one of my all-time heroes, so, of course, the pressure never lets up. Every second, you hope he'll like it. I remember getting a call from him after he read my script for 'Hearts in Atlantis.' He liked it. Talk about relief.
There is one crucial rule that must be followed in all creative meetings. Never speak first. At least at the start, your job is to shut up.
As far as the filmmaking process is concerned, stars are essentially worthless - and absolutely essential.
But this is life on earth, you can't have everything.
Being a screenwriter is not enough for a full creative life.
