A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.
BILLY WILDERI am big. It’s the pictures that got small.
More Billy Wilder Quotes
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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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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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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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I just made pictures I would’ve liked to see.
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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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I don’t go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons.
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I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut.
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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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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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If something smells bad, why put your nose in it?
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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?
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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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The only pictures worth making are the ones that are playing with fire.
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You know, that stuff about pink elephants, that’s the bunk. It’s little animals. Little tiny turkeys in straw hats. Midget monkeys coming through the keyholes.
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I have never met anyone as utterly mean as Marilyn Monroe. Nor as utterly fabulous on the screen, and that includes Garbo.
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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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Well, nobody’s perfect.
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Make subtlety obvious.
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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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[on pop idol Donny Osmond] He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.
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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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If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.
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Hollywood didn’t kill Marilyn Monroe, it’s the Marilyn Monroes who are killing Hollywood.
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One’s too many and a hundred’s not enough.
BILLY WILDER