Born into a Jewish family in Eger, Austria-Hungary,[2] Egri came to the US in 1906 and worked in a New York garment factory as a tailor and presser.

Casting about for some adequate means of conveying a sense of the furious pace of this machine age, Egri pictured a world in which all of life is compressed into twenty-four hours.

"I still think his The Art of Dramatic Writing is the most stimulating and best book on the subject ever written, and I have them all," Allen told biographer Eric Lax.

Central to Egri's argument is his claim that the best stories follow the logical method of thesis, antithesis, synthesis, or dialectic, to prove what he calls a "premise."

Egri also emphasizes what he sees as the ever-present role of change in all forms of life, forcing people to evolve and synthesize new philosophies in the face of one overwhelming obstacle after another.

Egri taught creative writing in his West Los Angeles home (at 11635 Mayfield Avenue) until shortly before his death.