The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure and natural movement.
From Raymond Chandler
A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled.
The more you reason the less you create.
Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.
The law isn't justice. It's a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be.
The streets were dark with something more than night.
It is not a fragrant world.
At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.
Television is just one more facet of that considerable segment of our society that never had any standard but the soft buck.
I think a man ought to get drunk at least twice a year just on principle, so he won't let himself get snotty about it.
2 perspectives
1 perspectives