One’s too many and a hundred’s not enough.
BILLY WILDEROne’s too many and a hundred’s not enough.
BILLY WILDERMake subtlety obvious.
BILLY WILDERThe best director is the one you don’t see.
BILLY WILDERFilm’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 WILDEREighty 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.
BILLY WILDERYou’re as good as the best thing you’ve ever done.
BILLY WILDERThe 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 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.
BILLY WILDERI met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my life, but you – you’re twenty minutes.
BILLY WILDERWe’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 WILDERI just made pictures I would’ve liked to see.
BILLY WILDERYou 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.
BILLY WILDERThe more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
BILLY WILDERI don’t go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons.
BILLY WILDERHollywood didn’t kill Marilyn Monroe, it’s the Marilyn Monroes who are killing Hollywood.
BILLY WILDERI 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