I would guess that the price of the script really is secondary. The credit is much more the essence.
If in any quest for magic, in any search for sorcery, witchery, legerdemain, first check the human spirit.
Most shows, buying shows, have a standard fee for the first shot of the writer and if you have a very militant agent, I suppose he might jack it up four percent or something. But in essence, you sell for what is the going rate.
It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
Star Trek, I thought, was a very inconsistent show, which at times sparkled with true ingenuity and pure science fiction approaches, and other times was more carnival-like, and very much more the creature of television than the creature of a legitimate literary form.
I’ve never really topped myself, because awards in themselves really don’t reflect major accomplishment. It’s kind of a strange, backslapping ritual that we go through in this town where you get awards for almost everything. For surviving the day you’re going to get awards.
The writer’s role is to menace the public’s conscience. He must have a position, a point of view. He must see the arts as a vehicle of social criticism and he must focus on the issues of his time.
Just drawing back and drawing in; becoming narcissistic.
All the Dachaus must remain standing.
But it makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Just how normal are we? Just who are the people we nod our hellos to as we pass on the street? A rather good question to ask – particularly in The Twilight Zone.
Seeing does not always believe.
Justice can span years. Retribution is not subject to a calendar.
Not since the British raided Cologne had so many bombs landed in such a small space in such a short time.
You can be a hunchback and a dwarf and what-all. If you write beautifully, you can write beautifully.
It’s part of the business of really not caring about topping myself because I really don’t care what’s going to happen. I think just surviving is a major thing. I’d like to write something that my peers, my colleagues, my fellow writers would find a source of respect.
Our greatest responsibility is not to be pencils of the past.
I think I’d rather win, for example, a Writer’s Guild award than almost anything on earth. And the few nominations I’ve had with the guild, and the few awards I’ve had, represented to me a far more legitimate concrete achievement than anything.
Science fiction makes the implausible possible, while science fantasy makes the impossible plausible.
If you need drugs to be a good writer, you are not a good writer.
I was a Christmas present that was delivered unwrapped.