John Milius

(CNN) -- You know that line in "Dirty Harry" in which Clint Eastwood's Harry Callahan describes the power of the .44 Magnum? John Milius wrote that line.

Remember the line in "Jaws" when Robert Shaw, playing the shark hunter, talks about his buddies being eaten alive by sharks during World War II? That was Milius.

How about the line in "Apocalypse Now," when Robert Duvall, playing a surf-loving Army colonel, says "I love the smell of napalm in the morning"?

Milius again.

And he hasn't lost his bold way with dialogue -- including his own.

For example, here's Milius on stopping murderous drug traffickers in Mexico: "We need to go down there, kill them all, flatten the place with bulldozers so when you wake up in the morning, there's nothing there," he said in a phone interview. "I do believe if you have a military, you use it."

Or Rush Limbaugh: "I was watching Rush Limbaugh the other night, and I was horrified. I would have Rush Limbaugh drawn and quartered. He was sticking up for these Wall Street pigs. There should be public show trials, mass denunciations and executions."

He's said to be the model for the character Walter Sobchak in the Coen brothers' "The Big Lebowski," an item Milius doesn't dispute.

"They told me they based that character on me," Milius said, adding that he had previously turned down the Coens' offer to appear in their film "Barton Fink" as a studio chief.