“Innocent people can get into terrible jams, too. One false move and you’re in over your head.”

That God has managed to survive the inanities of the religions that do Him homage is truly a miraculous proof of His existence.

Love is the magician that pulls him out of his own hat.

A wise man will always allow a fool to rob him of ideas without yelling “Thief.” If he is wise he has not been impoverished. Nor has the fool been enriched. The thief flatters us by stealing. We flatter him by complaining.

The honors Hollywood has for the writer are as dubious as tissue-paper cuff links.

He was in love with life as an ant on a summer blade of grass.

They’re a symbol of the whole town, pretending to fight, love, weep and laugh all the time – and they’re phonies, all of them. And I head the list…their phony hearts were dripping with the milk of human kindness.

When you overpay small people you frighten them. They know that their merits or activities entitle them to no such sums as they are receiving. As a result their boss soars out of economic into magic significance.

Criticism can never instruct or benefit you. Its chief effect is that of a telegram with dubious news. Praise leaves no glow behind, for it is a writer’s habit to remember nothing good of himself.

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

Of the things men give each other the greatest is loyalty.

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.

If you don’t move to protect copyright, if you don’t move to protect our children, it’s not going to sit well

We all want a United Africa, United not only in our concept of what unity connotes, but united in our common desire to move forward together in dealing with all the problems that can best be solved only on a continental basis.

As you go on you realize “Okay I know how to get laughs but am I saying things I want to say? Am I writing jokes that I like?” You get to a point that is that so you move on.

Ah, I like the look of packing crates! A household in preparation for a journey! … Something full of the flow of life, do you understand? Movement, progress…

God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm.

I think there are lots of ways to make good work. You can throw big bucks at a project and make what some would call crap, or you can work very modestly with eloquently moving results.

God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm.

I’ve got a hold of something that won’t move. It’s a willingness to keep walking into the next day, open to whatever may turn out to be true that day.