Screenwriter Quotes

Publishing is no longer simply a matter of picking worthy manuscripts and putting them on offer. It is now as important to market books properly, to work with the bookstore chains to getterms, co-op advertising, and the like. The difficulty is that publishers who can market are most often not the publishers with worthy lists.

Olivia Goldsmith

The English seem to think drinking wine is like committing adultery, something you do rarely and abroad.

William Nicholson

Flo: I've never been so insulted in my life.
Hackenbush: Well, it's early yet.

Our unconscious is not more animal than our conscious, it is often even more human

I've never been one for late nights, which is why I have always preferred making films to theatre. A play takes over your life: you start to feel sick at lunchtime and by mid-afternoon you're wishing for a bomb scare so the whole thing will be called off. Of course, if the evening goes well and you get the applause then it's wonderful. We're a strange bunch, we actors.

I write plays for people who wouldn't be seen dead in the theatre.

I haven't had a single moment of terror since they told me [I was dying]. My only regret is to die four pages too soon. If I can finish, then I'm quite happy to go.

You're good, kid, but as long as I'm around, you're only second best.

Lancey Howard speaking

Ring Lardner Jr.

Torture injures everyone who comes into contact with it and corrodes the country that abides it.

Editing is not merely a method of the junction of separate scenes or pieces, but is a method that controls the 'psychological guidance' of the spectator.

Vsevolod Pudovkin

The director of a film is treated by his staff the way a group of passengers would treat a psychotic ship's captain during a typhoon: namely, with respect and apprehension.

Marshall Brickman

I like the idea of stopping mid-sentence, like Graham Greene.

Never apologize and never explain—it's a sign of weakness.

I think for me anyway, the most successful horror movies that work are the ones that can create characters who you care about and that have characteristics that resonate with you and I think that is highly important, because if you can create characters that are likeable and people you can relate to, to me it makes the scares that much more scarier.

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

Sometimes you just gotta trust that your secret's been kept long enough.

We all need the waters of the Mercy River. Though they don't run deep, there's usually enough, just enough, for the extravagance of our lives.

Well, one thing you can say for masturbation... you certainly don't have to look your best.

My inheritance. You stole my inheritance, man. That aint right. That aint right and you know it. You had yr own. And you blew it. You blew it motherfucker! I saved mines and you blew yrs.

Suzan-Lori Parks

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

Michael Patrick King

When I heard I was up for it, obviously I wanted to win. It's really an honour. I love playing for my country.

We cannot improve the making of our eyes, but we can endlessly perfect the camera.

I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of, and if you find that you're not, I hope you find the strength to start all over again.

We all dream of being a child again, even the worst of us. Perhaps the worst most of all.

Since ancient times, the philosophers' secret has always been this: we know that God does not exist, or, at least, if he does, he's utterly indifferent to our individual affairs--but we can't let the rabble know that; it's the fear of God, the threat of divine punishment and the promise of divine reward, that keeps in line those too unsophisticated to work out questions of morality on their own.

Robert J. Sawyer