BRET EASTON ELLIS

I have no problems or issues with screenwriting in general.

Why would I care what other people are thinking? I don't care what an audience thinks of me.

Everyone I know who is successful has issues with their father, regardless of whether it was sports or business or entertainment.

Completely committed to adapting 'Fifty Shades of Grey'. This is not a joke. Christian Grey and Ana: potentially great cinematic characters.

I think my sensibility is very literary; all my books were built as books, and I wasn't thinking about them being movies.

I had no idea that 'Less Than Zero' was going to be read by anyone outside of Los Angeles, and it's - believe me, as the writer of the book I'm somewhat amused and intrigued by the idea that 25 years later it's still out and people are still reading it.

I'd rather let the fiction speak for itself and I don't want to write fiction that tells people how to feel, and I don't want to be judgmental in the fiction.

Regardless of the business aspect of things, is there a reason that there isn't a female Hitchcock or a female Scorsese or a female Spielberg? I don't know. I think it's a medium that really is built for the male gaze and for a male sensibility.

Are you as much of a criminal if you don't act when there's a crime taking place in front of you as you are one of the participants? That was something that I was thinking about a lot because there are many moments in 'Less Than Zero' where horrific things happen and Clay could do something about them, but his passivity stops him.

If I want to write a movie, I'll write a screenplay, but if I have an idea for a book, it's something that I think can only be done novelistically.

All of my books come from pain.

Exploitation is a harsh word, I know that, but on a certain level, to me that is the central Hollywood story.

Every book for me is an exorcism in some way or another, working through my feelings at the time.

Writing a novel is not method acting and I find it easy to step out of it at cocktail hour.

I think basically most men are misogynistic.

Hope E. L .James doesn't think I'm being a prankster. I really want to adapt her novels for the screen. Christian Grey is a writer's dream.

No one is drawn to writing about being happy or feelings of joy.

I do not feel I have a legacy to protect.

It's the rare book that's able to transport you in a way that a movie does.

Unless you're the director on the movie, or putting up the money for the movie, you really don't have a lot of control.

I totally relate to Tom Cruise. He's not crazy, it's just the litany of the mid-life crisis.

I don't know why I write what I write.

I went to college in Vermont, and then stayed in the East Coast.

I just sort of write the book I feel like writing given the emotional place I am in my life at the time.

I feel like I'm not smart enough to answer the questions I'm asked.