France is a place where the money falls apart in your hands but you can’t tear the toilet paper.
BILLY WILDERAn actor entering through the door, you’ve got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you’ve got a situation.
More Billy Wilder Quotes
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The ringing of a telephone that sounds like Beethoven’s “Pastoral.” A letter scribbled on her office stationery that you carry around in your pocket because it smells of all the lilacs in Ohio.
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We’re making a picture for middle-class people, the people that you see on the subway, or the people that you see in a restaurant. Just normal people.
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Money makes even bastards legitimate.
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Well, nobody’s perfect.
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She was an absolute genius as a comedic actress, with an extraordinary sense for comedic dialogue. It was a God-given gift.
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After so many drive-in waitresses becoming movie stars, there has been this real drought, when along come class; somebody who actually went to school, can spell, maybe even plays the piano.
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God save me from myself.
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Make subtlety obvious.
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The best director is the one you don’t see.
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Develop a clean line of action for your leading character
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One’s too many and a hundred’s not enough.
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The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
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I am appalled by this Marilyn Monroe cult. Perhaps it’s getting to be an act of courage to say the truth about her. Well, let me be courageous.
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I just made pictures I would’ve liked to see.
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[on pop idol Donny Osmond] He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.
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You’re as good as the best thing you’ve ever done.
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Ah, Marilyn, Hollywood’s Joan of Arc, our Ultimate Sacrificial Lamb. Well, let me tell you, she was mean, terribly mean. The meanest woman I have ever known in this town.
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You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning.
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Jerry: Oh, you don’t understand, Osgood! Ehhhh… I’m a man. Osgood: Well, nobody’s perfect.
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Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.
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I don’t go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons.
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Now, what is it which makes a scene interesting? If you see a man coming through a doorway, it means nothing. If you see him coming through a window – that is at once interesting.
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If you’re going to tell people the truth, be funny or they’ll kill you.
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I had one life. And what did I do? Wasted it in some palooka preliminaries in Spain, just before Hitler and Chamberlain warm up for the main event.
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Eighty percent of a picture is writing, the other twenty percent is the execution, such as having the camera on the right spot and being able to afford to have good actors in all parts.
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Film’s thought of as a director’s medium because the director creates the end product that appears on the screen. It’s that stupid auteur theory again, that the director is the author of the film. But what does the director shoot-the telephone book?
BILLY WILDER