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The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.

Billy Wilder

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.
BILLY WILDER

Hit House Morning Rain Writing
One’s too many and a hundred’s not enough.
BILLY WILDER

Enough Hundred One
I just made pictures I would’ve liked to see.
BILLY WILDER

Like Made Picture
Film’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 WILDER

Book Director Fighting Stupid Theory
The best director is the one you don’t see.
BILLY WILDER

Directors Inspirational Motivational
I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut.
BILLY WILDER

Cutting Finals Nine
My English is a mixture between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Archbishop Tutu.
BILLY WILDER

English Mixtures Schwarzenegger
Hollywood didn’t kill Marilyn Monroe, it’s the Marilyn Monroes who are killing Hollywood.
BILLY WILDER

Country Hollywood Killing People
You’re as good as the best thing you’ve ever done.
BILLY WILDER

Best Things Done
Jerry: Oh, you don’t understand, Osgood! Ehhhh… I’m a man. Osgood: Well, nobody’s perfect.
BILLY WILDER

Men Perfect Wells
The forest of Compiegne. Look at it. Like a kind grandmother dozing in her rocking chair. Old trees practicing curtsies in the wind because they still think Louis XIV is king.
BILLY WILDER

Grandmother Kings Old Thinking Tree
If there’s anything I hate more than not being taken seriously, it’s being taken too seriously.
BILLY WILDER

Hate Seriously Taken
Now, what is it which makes a scene interesting? If you see a man coming through a doorway, it means nothing. If you see him coming through a window – that is at once interesting.
BILLY WILDER

Interesting Mean Men
I met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my life, but you – you’re twenty minutes.
BILLY WILDER

Eggs Funny Twenties
My Aunt Minnie would always be punctual and never hold up production, but who would pay to see my Aunt Minnie?
BILLY WILDER

Aunt Hold Pay Punctuation
[about the Hotel Marmont on Sunset Blvd., a piece of Hollywood history] I would rather sleep in a bathroom than in another hotel.
BILLY WILDER

Bathroom Hotel Sleep Sunset
I hate that word. It’s return–a return to the millions of people who’ve never forgiven me for deserting the screen.
BILLY WILDER

Hate People Return Screen
A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.
BILLY WILDER

Directing Directors Film Sycophants
Well, nobody’s perfect.
BILLY WILDER

Gender Nobody Perfect Well
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.
BILLY WILDER

Around Fabulous Mean Met Towns
Money makes even bastards legitimate.
BILLY WILDER

Bastard Legitimate Make Money
You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning.
BILLY WILDER

Dream Good Inspiration Morning
[on pop idol Donny Osmond] He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.
BILLY WILDER

Life Music Sarcastic
I have never met anyone as utterly mean as Marilyn Monroe. Nor as utterly fabulous on the screen, and that includes Garbo.
BILLY WILDER

Anyone Fabulous Screen Utterly
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.
BILLY WILDER

Able Actors Camera Writing
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

Country People Ring Smell Sound Stationery Telephone
Writers became much more important when sound came in, but they’ve had to put up a valiant fight to get the credit they deserve.
BILLY WILDER

Deserve Fight Important Writer

The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.

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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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