American Screenwriter Quotes

The artist and the multitude are natural enemies. They always will be, both ways. The artist is an enemy of the multitude, and the multitude is the enemy of the artist. And when the disguise comes off and they're both standing facing one another, they're just there at odds end.

I burned my candle at both ends, And now have neither foes nor friends.

Samuel Hoffenstein

Bernie: Can you help me? I have lost my sense of direction.
Kermit: Have you tried Hare Krishna?

The Cross was the manifestation of Divine love without reserve or limit; but it was also the expression of man's unutterable malignity.

Robert Anderson

Always know and remember that you are more than your physical body.

Self-pity had always been her sincerest emotion...

Amazing, really, to think of what a man could achieve with the simple ability to put pen to paper and spin a decent yarn.

On a Hollywood agent having had a swim in waters full of sharks:

I think that's what they call professional courtesy.

Herman J. Mankiewicz

In my view there can be no affirmative action without segregation-nor any end to the segregation if our names must be kept on separate lists. I'd like to propose instead a simple scenario: a fair job market where employment is commensurate with ability regardless of gender, racial or ethnic background. I make a pitch, they like my story, I get the job. Why not?

Migdia Chinea Varela

Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.

Lord Farquaad speaking

Ted Elliott (screenwriter)

Attention vermin, you are in the presence of a colossus.

I don't believe there is any finer mission on earth than just to make people laugh.

Roscoe Arbuckle

My corn I take serious because it's my corn, and my potatoes and my tomatoes and fences I take note of because they're mine. But this war is not mine and I take no note of it!

James Lee Barrett

Feminist theory has left an indelible mark on my own critical—and creative—thinking... For me, everything I questioned about what it meant to be a man – and how much my sexuality would perpetually challenge those meanings—could be found in arguments posed by feminists. What can I say? I identified.

There are no available men in their thirties in New York. Giuliani had them removed along with the homeless.

Michael Patrick King

To be famous is to be stuck in an inflexible place. But at least it is to be stuck with money.

I gotta tell you, I am loving this yada yada thing. I can gloss over my whole life story.

Lie to me. Tell me all these years you've waited. Tell me.

The Great Actor always must act. … Every last second of his life must be pose and posture.

Lionel Barrymore

Being out on the edge, with everything at risk, is where you learn and grow the most.

I learned long ago to never be disappointed by people. Especially politicians.

I guess I think that films have to be made totally by fascists – there's no room for democracy in making film.

D. A. Pennebaker

But I think Cybil was my biggest fan. She cut out my articles and hung them in her locker and we were always cracking up how if you wrote the simplest, most obvious thing in the world people thought you were a genius.

They call war an art, but it isn't. It largely consists in outwitting people, robbing widows and orphans, and inflicting suffering on the helpless for one's own ends - and that's not art: that's business.

Kenneth Roberts (author)

Let's go again to Niag'ra,
This time we'll look at the Fall.
Let's leave our hut, Dear,
Get out of our rut, Dear,
Let's get away from it all.