“There is nothing as dull as an intellectual ally after a certain age.”

The only practical way yet discovered by the world for curing its ills is to forget about them.

Out of the seventy movies I’ve written some ten of them were not entirely waste product.

I haunted streets, whorehouses, police stations, courtrooms, theater stages, jails, saloons, slums, madhouses, fires, murders, riots, banquet halls and bookshops.

Three years ago, the white hope of the theatre. Today, a mug. That’s New York for you. Puts you on a Christmas tree, and then – the alley.

Prejudice is a raft onto which the shipwrecked mind clambers and paddles to safety.

The rule in the art world is: you cater to the masses or you kowtow to the elite; you can’t have both.

People’s sex habits are as well known in Hollywood as their political opinions, and much less criticized.

Bad writing is not easier than good writing. It’s just as hard to make a toilet seat as it is a castle window. Only the view is different.

I have known a number of Don Juans who were good studs and who cavorted between the sheets without a psychiatrist to guide them. But most of the busy love-makers I knew were looking for masculinity rather than practicing it. They were fellows of dubious lust.

I know that a man who shows me his wealth is like the beggar who shows me his poverty; they are both looking for alms from me, the rich man for the alms of my envy, the poor man for the alms of my guilt.

Socially, a journalist ranks somewhere between the madam of a whorehouse and a bartender. but spiritually he ranks with Galileo, for he knows the world is round.

Love is a hole in the heart.

Chicago is a sort of journalistic Yellowstone Park, offering haven to a last herd of fantastic bravos.

In moderating, not satisfying desires, lies peace.

I have usually forgotten those who have admired my work, and seldom anyone who disliked it. Obviously, this is because praise is never enough and censure always too much.

For many years Hollywood held this double lure for me, tremendous sums of money for work that required no more effort than a game of pinochle.

Israel is our strongest, most reliable ally in the Middle East. Of course, we’re their most reliable ally, too.

Good entrepreneurs can manage, but no one but an entrepreneur can entrepreneur, let alone help build and lead the world’s community of leading social entrepreneurs and their top business entrepreneur allies.

For art to be ‘unpolitical’ means only to ally itself with the ‘ruling’ group.

These allies are the hallucinogenic plants and the mysterious teaching entities, luminous and transcendental, that reside in that nearby dimension of ecstatic beauty and understanding that we have denied until it is now nearly too late.

Inflict the least possible permanent injury, for the enemy of to-day is the customer of the morrow and the ally of the future

The passion for power over others can never cease to threaten mankind, and is always sure of finding new and unforseen allies in continuing its martyrology.

I considered her my ally, because, like me, she was imperfect.

We should be wary, particularly with our closest friends and allies, of breaking down the trust and confidence that lie at the foundation of relationships.