“No outsider can imagine the stupidity, blustering hysteria, authoritarianism, and paralyzing boredom of shooting a flick for Billy Wilder. The so-called "actors" are simply trained poodles who sit up on their hind legs and jump through hoops. I thought the insanity would never stop. But I got a shitload of money.”

“Face it, Nat, this is one tiger who will never be jumping through your flaming hoop”

“All his life he [the American] jumps into the train after it has started and jumps out before it has stopped; and he never once gets left behind, or breaks a leg.”

“Valkyrie, if there was ever a cradle to be robbed… Gods, justat him."…

… "Face it, Nat, this is one tiger who will never be jumping through your flaming hoop--”

“I lower the bill of my cap stop looking / thoughts ready to go / sit in this train that's as long as the journey”

“In my house there's this light switch that doesn't do anything. Every so often I would flick it on and off just to check. Yesterday, I got a call from a woman in Madagascar. She said”

“Now I begin to know at last,
These nights when I sit down to rhyme,
The form and measure of that vast
God we call Poetry, he who stoops
And leaps me through his paper hoops
A little higher every time.”

“I ain't shooting nobody, so call me a faggot. When the war's over, I'll be the faggot with two legs.”

“I never chose money, I always chose people. I wanted to be around people who knew more than I did. I think that’s why I never fell in love with an actor. They never seemed to know any more than I did. I wanted to be with writers… My idea of a dream man was Thornton Wilder.”

“I've never really thought of myself as depressed so much as I am paralyzed by hope.”