Television is just one more facet of that considerable segment of our society that never had any standard but the soft buck.
The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure and natural movement.
Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl's clothes off.
The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers.
The law isn't justice. It's a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be.
Most critical writing is drivel and half of it is dishonest. It is a short cut to oblivion, anyway. Thinking in terms of ideas destroys the power to think in terms of emotions and sensations.
The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring.
Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.
An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence.
At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.
Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency.
Chess is the most elaborate waste of human intelligence outside of an advertising agency.
From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.
Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.
I certainly admire people who do things.