I Have Made A Lot Of Mistakes

Most Directors, I Discovered, Need To Be Convinced That The Screenplay They're Going To Direct Has Something To Do With Them. And This Is A Tricky Thing If You Write Screenplays Where Women Have Parts That Are Equal To Or Greater Than The Male Part. And I Thought, 'why Am I Out There Looking For Directors?'—because You Look At A List Of Directors, It's All Boys. It Certainly Was When I Started As A Screenwriter. So I Thought, 'i'm Just Gonna Become A Director And That'll Make It Easier.'

You Can Settle For Reality, Or You Can Go Off, Like A Fool, And Dream Another Dream.

Reading Is Everything. Reading Makes Me Feel Like I've Accomplished Something, Learned Something, Become A Better Person. Reading Makes Me Smarter. Reading Gives Me Something To Talk About Later On. Reading Is The Unbelievably Healthy Way My Attention Deficit Disorder Medicates Itself. Reading Is Escape, And The Opposite Of Escape; It's A Way To Make Contact With Reality After A Day Of Making Things Up, And It's A Way Of Making Contact With Someone Else's Imagination After A Day That's All Too Real. Reading Is Grist. Reading Is Bliss.

[on The Screenplay For "when Harry Met Sally"] It Struck Me That The Movies Had Spent More Than Half A Century Saying, "they Lived Happily Ever After" And The Following Quarter Century Warning That They'll Be Lucky To Make It Through The Weekend. Possibly Now We Are Now Entering A Third Era In Which The Movies Will Be Sounding A Note Of Cautious Optimism: You Know, It Just Might Work.

Another Thing You End Up Doing When You Get Older, Is You Spend So Much Time Sort Of Trying Desperately To Keep From Just Looking Just A Little Older. You're Just Constantly Putting Stuff On Your Face And Having Things Removed From Yourself And Opening Up Copies Of "vogue" So That You Can Find New Ways To Throw Whatever Money You've Managed To Save Into The Arms Of Some Doctor Who Has Just Come Up With A New Way Of Lasering Your Face That Feels Like Electroshock And All These Things.