Screenwriters From The United States

"I’ve been doing "Breakfast Thoughts", and I guess my Breakfast Thought at the moment is, uh, is "the moment." Every person who is seeing me now — some are seeing me within months of my saying this, some are likely to see this years after I have said this, but whenever all of you are seeing it — that will be the moment you’re seeing it — as this is the moment I’m saying it. And what that means to me is: living in the moment. The moment between past and present, or present and past. The moment between after and next, the hammock in the middle of after and next. The moment. Treasure it. Use it with love."

"For all his faults, Archie loved his country and he loved his family, even when they called him out on his ignorance and bigotries. If Archie had been around 50 years later, he probably would have watched Fox News. He probably would have been a Trump voter. But I think that the sight of the American flag being used to attack Capitol Police would have sickened him. I hope that the resolve shown by Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, and their commitment to exposing the truth, would have won his respect."

"It is remarkable to consider that television — the medium for which I am most well-known — did not even exist when I was born, in 1922. The internet came along decades later, and then social media. We have seen that each of these technologies can be put to destructive use — spreading lies, sowing hatred and creating the conditions for authoritarianism to take root. But that is not the whole story. Innovative technologies create new ways for us to express ourselves, and, I hope, will allow humanity to learn more about itself and better understand one another’s ideas, failures and achievements."

"I often feel disheartened by the direction that our politics, courts and culture are taking. But I do not lose faith in our country or its future. I remind myself how far we have come."

"Reaching this birthday with my health and wits mostly intact is a privilege. Approaching it with loving family, friends and creative collaborators to share my days has filled me with a gratitude I can hardly express. This is our century, dear reader, yours and mine. Let us encourage one another with visions of a shared future. And let us bring all the grit and openheartedness and creative spirit we can muster to gather together and build that future."

"So how do you unify a secure, wealthy country that has sunk into a zero-sum political game with itself? How do you make veterans feel that they are returning to a cohesive society that was worth fighting for in the first place? I put that question to Rachel Yehuda of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Yehuda has seen, up close, the effect of such antisocial divisions on traumatized vets. "If you want to make a society work, then you don't keep underscoring the places where you're different- you underscore your shared humanity," she told me. "I'm appalled by how much people focus on differences. Why are you focusing on how different you are from one another, and not on the things that unite us?""

"The United States is so powerful that the only country capable of destroying her might be the United States herself, which means that the ultimate terrorist strategy would be to just leave the country alone. That way, America's ugliest partisan tendencies could emerge unimpeded by the unifying effects of war. The ultimate betrayal of tribe isn't acting competitively- that should be encouraged- but predicating your power on the excommunication of others from the group. That is exactly what the politicians of both parties try to do when they spew venomous rhetoric about their rivals. That is exactly what media figures do when they go beyond criticism of their fellow citizens and openly revile them. Reviling people you share a combat outpost with is an incredibly stupid thing to do, and public figures who imagine their nation isn't, potentially, one huge combat outpost are deluding themselves."

"Science fiction literature's focus is on ideas, the concept of change, and the impact on humanity. Those concepts are hard to capture on film. They work better in the mind."

"Each story should be enjoyed on its own merits, without relying on its connection to a larger universe, adding that shared universes should enhance individual stories, not the other way around."

"I love raccoons. I had a raccoon figurine collection as a kid, and I now have two movies with 'Ranger Rick' jokes in them. I love 'em. They come in my backyard all the time, and we just stare at each other like a couple of idiots."

"I think of the Avengers as The Beatles, and the Guardians are the Rolling Stones. That is really how I feel about the groups."

"I like Jason Statham movies, like The Transporter or whatever. I watch them all the time when they come on TV. Then I saw 'Crank,' and I couldn't believe how awesome it was."

"The Flash resets many things, not all things. Some characters remain the same, some do not ."

"I'm going to gently assume that if you're reading this book, you are a little bit of a nerd, or perhaps you're a man whose nerd girlfriend is taking a long time in the bathroom and you can't figure out how to turn on her television."

"I’m surprised when I remember that, physically, I resemble most women in this country. In the United States, a woman who is 5 feet 4 inches and a size 10 is probably more common than virtually any other body type. But somehow when she is on-screen it’s shocking to people, almost as shocking as seeing a married couple on TV where the man and woman are roughly the same age."

"I think there’s been a tendency for people to conflate my characters with my personality. … I wrote 24 episodes of The Office. That’s more than any other person on The Office, but no one can really picture me sitting and doing the hard work of writing the episodes."

"I could really relate to [Never Have I Ever], more than anything else that I’ve ever written. I was personally proud of it, but didn’t know how it would be received. And to this day, I think it’s my biggest success in terms of how many people it reached and how popular it was on Netflix. I learned a lesson from it, which is not to be cynical about the public."

"When you’re starting out [as a television writer], mostly it’s terrifying because you think you could get fired and then never get hired again. If you see some of the statistics for women of color on writing staffs, you’ll see that even if there’s parity, it’s so hard to get promoted and stay on a show. A whopping majority of upper-level writers are still white men. You see a lot of people of color in the younger ranks, but it’s hard to move up."

"I simply regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world created therein has different rules than my regular human world. …. There is no difference between Ripley from Alien and any Katherine Heigl character."

"I was at the movies yesterday, and before the movie started they had this long ad where they were trying to say … "Don't download things illegally" et cetera. And … they were like, "You wouldn't steal a purse, would you? You wouldn't think of stealing a car." And I was thinking about it … and I was like, "You know what? I would steal a car if it was as easy as, like, touching the car, and then 30 seconds later I own the car." And, like, I would steal a car if … [even though I stole] the car, the person who owned the car got to keep the car. And I would also steal a car if no one I had ever met had ever bought a car before in their whole lives."

"One huge bas relief in particular stuns us with its fluid elegance in depicting the Hindu creation myth, "churning the sea of milk" In a union between gods and demons, the giant serpent Vasuki is pulled back and forth between the monkey god, Hanuman, and a line of demons. Vasuki who has wrapped himself around Mount Mandara, is supported by a giant turtle in the Sea of Milk, the ocean of immortality. As Vishnu overseas this diville rhythm of opposites, the gods and demons rotate the mountain and chum the sea into foam, releasing a seminal fluid which creates a divine ambrosia, or amrita, the essence of elixir of life. Much of the bas-relief has faded from centuries of worshippers rubbing their hands over the figures, but overall it is still exquisitely defined."

"We stumble around the massive solemnity of this temple mountain, which offers not so much solace or refuge as It does awe and even a shiver of atavistic fear at the omniscience of its precision. It is a place of power, once ruled by Hindu devarajas, under whose totality religious art and sculpture reflect Shiva and Vishnu ...."

"Angkor wat has overpowered as much as inspired me. It is as if I've trapped myself my wishing for relief, for a transcendent moment, or even, on a more banal level, a catalyst that would revive our sagging energies. The magnificence of the sheer mass of Angkor Wat, the weight and abundance of imagery has become oppressive. I am disoriented by so much visual grandeur."

"I can’t tell you how encouraging a thing like this is. The first film that I was ever in was in 1915, and here we are, and it’s 1969. Actually, I don’t know why it took me so long, though I don’t think, you know, that I’m backward. Anyway, thank you Bill, thank you Bob, thank you Roman and thank you Mia, and thank all of you who voted for me."

"Work on yourself. Believe in yourself. Show up! Support others! The bounty of the world will open up for you."

"Ruth exulted in life, Her blazing professionalism and generosity of spirit made it obvious to me that we had in our midst one of the greatest of them all."

"Her strength was always tremendous, tremendous theatrical expertise. She knew more about the theater than anybody that I ever encountered in my life. And she, being a very great actress, could recognize the strengths and the weaknesses in a role, so that she wouldn't allow a part in any of our films to be anything less than a wonderful acting part."

"Kanin, Ruth's husband describe her role as an actress in 1837."

"Her warmth and humanity shone like the first patch of sun on a dark and wintry day, The world will be a colder place without her enthusiastic, elegant and adorable countenance."

"I wipe away all the unpleasantness of the day, of the people, of the city, whatever. We have it in our power to overcome assholes, and I think we have them thrown into our path to see if we have the chops to handle them."

"The biggest limitations are the ones we place on ourselves, and opportunities rise up to meet the unique offerings of people."

"I was amazed the way Garson could take these teams and make me want to see their pictures all over again."

"At this time it's being considered as a natural death,she was always around town, She always stopped and talked to people. She was very pleasant."

"Don't be helpless, don't give up, don't kill yourself, don't look for trouble. Stuff gets in your way, kick it under the rug. Stay well, stay with it, make it come out..."

"I had made so many promises to myself about things that I wanted to explore, things I wanted to try, and how I would like to grow as a person that I had made no time for. And I thought, 'That's enough."

"I wasn’t healthy. I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was the last thing on my list of priorities."

"Celebrity is a different job than what I’m interested in. I like the collaborative, creative experience. It’s a blue-collar job, you know? Getting together with a group of people where we’re all solving problems together, and everybody does their thing. They’re all at the top of their game, and everyone is giving it their all."

"And Renee's taught me a lot of that too. She's a very connected person. She thinks having a good time is renting a U-Haul and taking furniture to Texas. She's real in that way and I absolutely love it."

"Seeing all the people back in character was quite a moving experience. I think Renée is better in the role now than she’s ever been and that’s saying something. It was like watching close-up magic. It was a master class."

"My imperfections always surface at the most inopportune time. Usually on live TV, in an interview situation, and always on a red carpet. There’s always something happening, but that’s life. You just have to move forward."

"You cannot be a good storyteller if you don’t have life experiences, and you can’t relate to people."

"As an actress, it’s a dream come true role. You run the gamut of human emotions with each incarnation of the story. She’s an authentic character and I have so much fun playing her."

"I put on a few pounds. I also put on some breasts and a baby bump. Bridget is a perfectly normal weight and I’ve never understood why it matters so much."

"I know that great things happen when this team gets together, and I was optimistic about doing a very entertaining film."

"Not that it's anyone's business, but I did not make a decision to alter my face and have surgery on my eyes."

"I had a lot of promises that I made to myself, years ago, about things that I wanted to learn and try."

"Progress comes in ebbs and flows. You’ve got to put your foot on the gas when it comes … or things can go back to where they were."

"Because people would talk about grief, oftentimes saying, ‘y’all got hit with a wave.’ But the grief can carry you or you can feel like you’re drowning in it."

"You don’t know what your life is going to bring. You don’t know what’s going to happen."

"As filmmakers, you'll see actors working on a movie. Next thing you know, they're dating. Just because it's long hours, you're remote on location, and you end up becoming close with these people. You got no other choice but to. Sometimes that can get complicated."