Despite All Our Toil And Progress, The

For Many Years Hollywood Held This Double Lure For Me, Tremendous Sums Of Money For Work That Required No More Effort Than A Game Of Pinochle.

Writing A Good Movie Brings A Writer About As Much Fame As Steering A Bicycle. It Gets Him, However, More Jobs. If His Movie Is Bad It Will Attract Only Critical Tut-tut For Him. The Producer, Director And Stars Are The Geniuses Who Get The Hosannas When It's A Hit. Theirs Are Also The Heads That Are Mounted On Spears When It's A Flop.

Prejudice Is A Raft Onto Which The Shipwrecked Mind Clambers And Paddles To Safety.

The Writer Is A Definite Human Phenomenon. He Is Almost A Type - As Pugilists Are A Type. He May Be A Bad Writer - An Insipid One Or A Clumsy One - But There Is A Bug In Him That Keeps Spinning Yarns; And That Bulges His Brow A Bit, Narrows His Jaws, Weakens His Eyes And Gives Him Girl Children Instead Of Boys. Nobody But A Writer Can Write. People Who Hang Around Writers For Years - As Producers Did - Who Are Much Smarter And Have Much Better Taste, Never Learn To Write.

Love's The Only Thing I've Thought Of Or Read About Since I Was Knee-high. That's What I Always Dreamed Of, Of Meeting Somebody And Falling In Love. And When That Remarkable Thing Happened, I Was Going To Recite Poetry To Her For Hours About How Her Heart's An Angel's Wing And Her Hair The Strings Of A Heavenly Harp. Instead I Got Drunk And Hollered At Her And Called Her A Harpy.