The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock - shock is a worn-out word - but astonish.
There is no power on earth that can loosen a man's grip on his own throat
I'm not interested in attacking, I'm interested in astonishing.
An angel has no memory.
I don't know why, but I always feel a kind of necessity to write things that are beyond acceptance, that are too offensive or something. For people to read them and say, Ha-ha-ha, very funny. No, we can't print that.
An absolutely devastating ridicule of all that is false, primitive, and vicious in current American life: the abuses of power, hero worship, aimless violence, materialistic obsession, intolerance, and every form of hypocrisy.
I learned not to care ... and to write for an imaginary reader whose tastes were similar to my own.
You can't do the end of the world in a conventionally dramatic way or Boy Meets Girl way.
In that sense, film is superior, but the difficulty is your lack of control as a writer.
I like to work at night.
When I finally made it to the set, I spent a lot of time doing damage control on The Magic Christian.
It's often the case with directors that they don't like to share credit, which is the case of Stanley. He would prefer just A Film By Stanley Kubrick including music and everything.
Someone wrote a piece about Henry Green in The Partisan Review that was so intriguing that I got one of his novels, Loving, I believe, which was the first that came to attention in the United States.
I met The Beatles and Stones at the same time, because Michael Cooper was doing several of their album covers.
The Loved One has been the most underrated film I've worked on.
It was a good experience working with Roger Vadim and Jane Fonda.
David Burnett was the son of Martha Foley, who edited the Best American Short Stories series. She hired me to work with David and her to read stories for the anthology.
Sometimes we would be staked out in the middle of the river, several barges tied together. So we could party.
Grossing Out dealt with the western nations selling arms to the Third World and exploiting these countries.
Writing on a contract for a major studio you get the very best.
I met Claxton on the set of The Cincinnati Kid.
For a director and a producer to be named on the writing credits is practically unheard of.
Peter Beard is one of those people I've known a long time. We have an affinity. We share certain values.
When Kubrick decided to go the black comedy route with his movie, he thought of me to give it that flavor.
After Strangelove I also started work on an adaptation of The Collector.
