Lost in space

Hosted on the great, great Euro Screenwriters site is this little gem (click through to get to the goodness):

Could the 5 minute film school be like the Tao Te Ching? Each lesson a point of meditation and distillation of thought, action and inaction? Either way, they should market the hell out of it and sell it for a couple of bucks. They could make a mint.

Also on this site is a great list of interviews with screenwriters, including Jean Claude Carriere, Richard Price, Paul Schrader, Suso Cecchi d'Amico and Sergio Donati.

There is also a page of notes about directing (Truffaut: "Film lovers are sick people") which happens to include one of the best Klaus Kinski rants about Herzog (for me My Best Fiend is one of the great films about madmen/filmmakers):

Now I absolutely despise the murderer Werner Herzog. I tell him to his face that I want to see him perish like the llama he executed. He should be thrown to the crocodiles alive! An anaconda should throttle him slowly! The sting of a deadly spider should paralyze him! His brain should burst from the bite of the most poisonous of all snakes! Panthers shouldn't slit his throat open with their claws, that would be too good for him! No. Big red ants should piss in his eyes, eat his balls, penetrate his asshole, and eat his guts! He should get the plague! Syphilis! Malaria! Yellow fever! Leprosy! In vain. The more I wish the most horrible of deaths on him and treat him like the scum of the earth that he is, the less I can get rid of him!

Klaus Kinski - On The Importance Of Maintaining A Good Actor/Director Relationship

Also great for a procrastinating writer is this page of inspiring quotes to keep you at work including this infamous gem from Hemingway:

"The first draft of everything is shit."