I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.
BILLY WILDERI’m delighted with it, because it used to be that films were the lowest form of art. Now we’ve got something to look down on.
More Billy Wilder Quotes
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The Austrians are brilliant people. They made the world believe that Hitler was a German and Beethoven an Austrian.
BILLY WILDER -
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.
BILLY WILDER -
If something smells bad, why put your nose in it?
BILLY WILDER -
I, you know, am all over the place – every category of pictures I have made, good, bad or indifferent.
BILLY WILDER -
If there’s anything I hate more than not being taken seriously, it’s being taken too seriously.
BILLY WILDER -
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 -
Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.
BILLY WILDER -
I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut.
BILLY WILDER -
The best director is the one you don’t see.
BILLY WILDER -
Make subtlety obvious.
BILLY WILDER -
She was an absolute genius as a comedic actress, with an extraordinary sense for comedic dialogue. It was a God-given gift.
BILLY WILDER -
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 -
We are on the track of something absolutely mediocre.
BILLY WILDER -
I hate that word. It’s return–a return to the millions of people who’ve never forgiven me for deserting the screen.
BILLY WILDER -
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.
BILLY WILDER