"[Referring to the radio station program director] I'll get him to call me some day, even if it means spilling cheese all over my brassiere at KFI, by gawd."

"[Referring to actress Winona Ryder] Get over it! Your "wide-eyed, gamine, trembling chipmunk" thing! Get over it!"

"Your body is a temple, whether you're a Jew or not."

"Look at you, turning on me like a Pomeranian!"

"Out came Ms. Hilton in a Juicy track suit, chattering away like a gibbon on her jewel-encrusted cell phone. It was like magic, if magic were like a extra-strength laxative."

"I love writing but I hate starting. The page is awfully white and it says. " You may have fooled some of the people some of the time but those days are over, giftless. I'm not your agent and I'm not your mommy, I'm a white piece of paper, you wanna dance with me?" and I really, really don't. I don't want any trouble. I'll go peaceable-like."

"People who don't know anything tend to make up fake rules, the real rules being considerably more difficult to learn."

"Is it (Sports Night) a comedy or a drama? That's generally not a question I try and answer for myself before I'm going to write something. The example I would use is, if you're driving in your car and you're listening to a rock 'n' roll station on the radio and a song comes on, and in the song you hear elements of jazz and folk and you hear strings in there … it's not necessary to answer the question, "Is this jazz, is this folk, or is this rock?" before you decide to listen to it and like it or not."

"Writing anything, it sorta starts the way you'd build a castle at the beach. You're just taking your hands and you're mounting up sand."

"Socializing on the internet is to socializing, what reality TV is to reality."

"Decisions are made by those who show up."

"The problem I had when I wrote The Social Network was that this thing that’s supposed to bring us closer together is pushing us further apart. It gives everyone the impression that everyone else in the world is having a better time, and that if you are not cataloging your life, then you’re not really living it. People are going to show you only pictures of themselves having a great time at the best party with the coolest people eating, for some reason, avocado toast. They’re also not going to experience empathy. When we’re a little kid on a playground and say something mean to another little kid, we see in their face what we did, and we feel bad because of it. On social media, it’s more like yelling at another driver from your car. People are developing a chemical addiction to their phones. A gambling addict feels that rush of dopamine and serotonin not when they win but when the roulette wheel is spinning. When kids stick their hand in their pocket to get their phone and see if someone has commented on the photo they posted, they get that rush of serotonin and dopamine. It’s a big deal. And now, when we talk about our concerns with Facebook, we’re talking about the power that it has to disseminate misinformation and disinformation. We’re never going to put this genie back in the bottle, but surely we can decide that lies are bad."

"The worst crime you can commit is telling the audience something they already know, in any fashion, even for a moment."

"I lived in a town called New Canaan, which is just outside of Connecticut, where they are far too snobby to even mention celebrities. Many American towns are famous for things like, "See the World's Largest Ball of String!" I think my town's would probably have to be "Most Pretentious People"."

"I'm still figuring out who I am. But at least I know what I want."

"I have a real problem giving up that kind of control. You know, my mother helps me."

"Yeah, I have giant breasts — in a bra. It's so disconcerting — there are so many women now with fake breasts that that's the standard; that's what you're supposed to look like. But real boobs don't look like that, and a lot of working out won't make them look like that."

"I do think you've got to fight a lot of the time to be respected in business, in relationships, in life. I learned that early in my career."

"I have very little patience for people who whine and complain about life not being fair. It's just the risk of life. The only thing to do is live as much as you can and as best you can, and just sort of swing it from there."

"I think people don't expect a lot from me. I'm trying to think at what age I noticed it was more about how I looked and less about what I do, but to me that was never the interesting part about me. I had nothing to do with my looks."

"Isn't it better to be alone than pretend you're someone else? Be you. Find you. Be happy with that."

"Oh God — I look back now, and it seems so gross. At just 14 years old, I had to wear a thong bikini. And then they used that scene in the trailer, so my entire school saw it! There are still men who come up to me today and say, "You were really hot in that film!" I was 14, for God's sake!"

"In my early 20s, I didn't know who I was or what I wanted. And if you're just getting to know yourself while you're in a serious relationship—well, it's almost like when you go through clothing phases where it's all Banana Republic all the time, and then it's something else. It's like you're trying on different personalities to see what fits, but there is that real you in there somewhere."

"Now I've got this moniker that I'm the foot-in-mouth gal, and I keep thinking, In what way? Because I said something you don't agree with? Because I said something you don't like? I'm just telling you my opinion. I hate the idea that I can't be honest about how I feel about things because it's going to piss somebody off who feels differently. That seems preposterous to me."

"My sense of humor is the raunchier, inappropriate kind. It's so much funnier than the quirky stuff."

"When I was 13, I was flat as a board and totally unhappy about it. I would write in my diary every day, Oh, if I could just have a B cup by summer! I actually prayed for big boobs. So I developed at about 14, and then I was 15, 16, 17, and they kept going."

"[about rental car employees who ask if he wants the additional insurance]"

"[about his daughters and nieces having developed a natural curiosity about boys]"

"You know, I remember Career Day in high school. I remember plumbers and lawyers . . . I don't remember a booth where you could sign up to learn how to shoot chickens out of a cannon at the windshield of an airplane, 'cause there would have been a line at my school to do that!"

"It's not my dreams that get me in trouble, it's the things my wife dreams I did...My wife punched me in the middle of the night; I woke up, I was like "Oww! What was that for?" She said "I dreamt you were making out with Faith Hill." I said "I wasn't dreaming anything! Send her over to my dream, we'll both be happy.""

"[about a clerk, after recounting a story he read in which someone presented a store cashier with a million dollar bill and asked for change]"

"My mother won't drive 50 miles an hour. You put her in a rental car, she's doing doughnuts in the grocery store parking lot!"

"Buying a used rental car is kind of like going to a house of ill repute looking for a wife. Anything that's been driven that hard by that many people, you really don't want to put your key in it."

"I've often said working with Larry is a lot like watching the Jerry Springer Show. After five minutes, you will feel better about your own family."

"Do you know why it's so hard to solve a Redneck murder? Because the DNA's all the same and there's no dental records."

"If you're a man and you've ever been antique shopping during a big football game, you're either gay or married."

"If you're a man and you can't remember the last time you had sex with a woman, you're either gay or married."

"(To his wife) You do not have testicular cancer. You don't even have "testiculars"!"

"A few weeks ago, sitting in traffic -- bumper-to-bumper traffic in Atlanta -- the car in front of me has got a bumper sticker that says "Honk if you love Jesus". I toot the horn a couple times, and the guy flipped me off."

"Women [in bed] are kind of like diesel engines. You know, it may take a little bit to get them going, but once you do, they can run a long, long time. Men, on the other hand, we're more like...bottle rockets. ' Ooh. Aah. '"

"[what men are thinking] I'd like a beer and I'd like to see something naked."

"You break into my house, I will shoot you. My wife will shoot you and then spend thirty minutes telling you why she shot you."

"[On why criminals rob nice-looking houses] You come up on a house where the grass is this tall, and there's a dog chained to the clothesline, and a motor swinging in the tree, buddy, that's a house where a gun lives! And you want to find out what kind it is, just crawl through the window after dark."