If there’s anything I hate more than not being taken seriously, it’s being taken too seriously.
BILLY WILDERDevelop a clean line of action for your leading character
More Billy Wilder Quotes
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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’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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Jerry: Oh, you don’t understand, Osgood! Ehhhh… I’m a man. Osgood: Well, nobody’s perfect.
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Make subtlety obvious.
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Money makes even bastards legitimate.
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I just always think, ‘Do I like it?’ And if I like it, maybe other people will come and like it too.
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They’ve tried to manufacture other Marilyn Monroes and they will undoubtedly keep trying. But it won’t work. She was an original.
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Well, nobody’s perfect.
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Marilyn was mean. Terribly mean. The meanest woman I have ever met around this town. I have never met anybody as mean as Marilyn Monroe or as utterly fabulous on the screen.
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France is a place where the money falls apart in your hands but you can’t tear the toilet paper.
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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 met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my life, but you – you’re twenty minutes.
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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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You’re as good as the best thing you’ve ever done.
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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.
BILLY WILDER