I, you know, am all over the place – every category of pictures I have made, good, bad or indifferent.
BILLY WILDERYou’re as good as the best thing you’ve ever done.
More Billy Wilder Quotes
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My Aunt Minnie would always be punctual and never hold up production, but who would pay to see my Aunt Minnie?
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You’re as good as the best thing you’ve ever done.
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Love is the hardest thing in the world to write about. So simple. You’ve got to catch it through details, like the early morning sunlight hitting the gray tin of the rain spout in front of her house.
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If there’s anything I hate more than not being taken seriously, it’s being taken too seriously.
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The best director is the one you don’t see.
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My English is a mixture between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Archbishop Tutu.
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I just made pictures I would’ve liked to see.
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Make subtlety obvious.
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Develop a clean line of action for your leading character
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Hollywood didn’t kill Marilyn Monroe, it’s the Marilyn Monroes who are killing Hollywood.
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You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning.
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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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[on pop idol Donny Osmond] He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.
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An actor entering through the door, you’ve got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you’ve got a situation.
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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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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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The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
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[about the Hotel Marmont on Sunset Blvd., a piece of Hollywood history] I would rather sleep in a bathroom than in another hotel.
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We are on the track of something absolutely mediocre.
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If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.
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She may be a wispy, thin little thing, but when you see that girl, you know you’re really in the presence of something. In that league there’s only ever been Garbo, and the other Hepburn, and maybe Bergman. It’s a rare quality, but boy, do you know when you’ve found it.
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I hate that word. It’s return–a return to the millions of people who’ve never forgiven me for deserting the screen.
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If you’re going to tell people the truth, be funny or they’ll kill you.
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Shoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award.
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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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Jerry: Oh, you don’t understand, Osgood! Ehhhh… I’m a man. Osgood: Well, nobody’s perfect.
BILLY WILDER