I hate that word. It’s return–a return to the millions of people who’ve never forgiven me for deserting the screen.
BILLY WILDERShe 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.
More Billy Wilder Quotes
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Shoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award.
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Develop a clean line of action for your leading character
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[on pop idol Donny Osmond] He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.
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The only pictures worth making are the ones that are playing with fire.
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You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning.
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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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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.
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A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.
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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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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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Happiness is working with Jack Lemmon.
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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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If you’re going to tell people the truth, be funny or they’ll kill you.
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God save me from myself.
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My English is a mixture between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Archbishop Tutu.
BILLY WILDER