It only takes ten pages to know if I’m in good hands.

It only takes ten pages to know if I’m in good hands. After that, I don’t feel morally obligated to finish. I could—but usually don’t —turn to any page to know if the writer's good, on the theory that any page of a script is like a glass of seawater: It contains all the elements of the whole. A script that compels me to read to the end is automatically a B+.

TONY BILL