I hate that word. It’s return–a return to the millions of people who’ve never forgiven me for deserting the screen.
BILLY WILDERThe more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
More Billy Wilder Quotes
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If you’re going to tell people the truth, be funny or they’ll kill you.
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My English is a mixture between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Archbishop Tutu.
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Shoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award.
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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 am big. It’s the pictures that got small.
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Make subtlety obvious.
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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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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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[on pop idol Donny Osmond] He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.
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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 just made pictures I would’ve liked to see.
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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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God save me from myself.
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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.
BILLY WILDER