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A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.

Billy Wilder

Make subtlety obvious.
BILLY WILDER

Make Obvious Subtlety
I just always think, ‘Do I like it?’ And if I like it, maybe other people will come and like it too.
BILLY WILDER

Always People Think Thinking
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.
BILLY WILDER

Class Girl Real Somebody Stars
You’re as good as the best thing you’ve ever done.
BILLY WILDER

Best Things Done
The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
BILLY WILDER

Hiding Plot Subtle
A bad play folds and is forgotten, but in pictures we don’t bury our dead. When you think it’s out of your system, your daughter sees it on television and says, My father is an idiot.
BILLY WILDER

Daughter Father Thinking
I, you know, am all over the place – every category of pictures I have made, good, bad or indifferent.
BILLY WILDER

Bored Category Moved People
If there’s anything I hate more than not being taken seriously, it’s being taken too seriously.
BILLY WILDER

Hate Seriously Taken
I never overestimate the audience, nor do I underestimate them. I just have a very rational idea as to who we’re dealing with, and that we’re not making a picture for Harvard Law School.
BILLY WILDER

Class Deal Law School Underestimate
I don’t go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons.
BILLY WILDER

Church Nylon Religion
An actor entering through the door, you’ve got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you’ve got a situation.
BILLY WILDER

Actors Doors Entering Situation
The best director is the one you don’t see.
BILLY WILDER

Directors Inspirational Motivational
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.
BILLY WILDER

Fabulous Mean Towns
Writers became much more important when sound came in, but they’ve had to put up a valiant fight to get the credit they deserve.
BILLY WILDER

Deserve Fight Important Writer
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.
BILLY WILDER

Country People Ring Smell Sound Stationery Telephone
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.
BILLY WILDER

Class Middle Normal People Restaurant

A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.

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A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.

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