NOTEBOOK

"I don't know what the hell you imagine you're doing here," he said, a little later. "Selling your soul, I suppose? All you writers have such a bloody romantic attitude. You think you're too good for the movies. Don't you believe it. The movies are too good for you. We don't need any romantic nineteenth-century whores. We need technicians. Thank God I'm a cutter. I know my job. As a matter of fact I'm damned good at it. I don't treat film as if it were a bit of my intestine. It's all Chatsworth's fault. He's a romantic, too. He will hire people like you. Thinks he's Lorenzo the Magnificent... I bet you despise mathematics? Well, let me tell you something. The movies aren't drama, they aren't literature. They're pure mathematics. Of course, you'll never understand that as long as you live."

Christopher Isherwood, Prater Violet.