Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.
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?
More Billy Wilder Quotes
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France is a place where the money falls apart in your hands but you can’t tear the toilet paper.
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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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My English is a mixture between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Archbishop Tutu.
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If something smells bad, why put your nose in it?
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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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The only pictures worth making are the ones that are playing with fire.
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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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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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God save me from myself.
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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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The best director is the one you don’t see.
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My Aunt Minnie would always be punctual and never hold up production, but who would pay to see my Aunt Minnie?
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I just made pictures I would’ve liked to see.
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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 don’t go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons.
BILLY WILDER