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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.

Billy Wilder

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
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 you don’t like what you’re doing, it’s unlikely anyone else will either, so be sure you are happy with your own work first.
BILLY WILDER

First Firsts Own Unlikely
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
If something smells bad, why put your nose in it?
BILLY WILDER

Bad Noses Smell
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
Money makes even bastards legitimate.
BILLY WILDER

Bastard Legitimate Make Money
If you’re going to tell people the truth, be funny or they’ll kill you.
BILLY WILDER

Funny Inspiring Sarcastic
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.
BILLY WILDER

Fabulous Mean Towns
[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
A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.
BILLY WILDER

Directing Directors Film Sycophants
We’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 WILDER

Class Middle Normal People Restaurant
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
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
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
Jerry: Oh, you don’t understand, Osgood! Ehhhh… I’m a man. Osgood: Well, nobody’s perfect.
BILLY WILDER

Men Perfect Wells

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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