I have never met anyone as utterly mean as Marilyn Monroe. Nor as utterly fabulous on the screen, and that includes Garbo.
BILLY WILDERLove 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.
More Billy Wilder Quotes
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I am appalled by this Marilyn Monroe cult. Perhaps it’s getting to be an act of courage to say the truth about her. Well, let me be courageous.
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The best director is the one you don’t 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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The Austrians are brilliant people. They made the world believe that Hitler was a German and Beethoven an Austrian.
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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.
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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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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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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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The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
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God save me from myself.
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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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[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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Happiness is working with Jack Lemmon.
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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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Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.
BILLY WILDER