Screenwriters Quotes:

If you want to be a great director, be a great screenwriter.

- Akira Kurosawa

topic: Directors, Want, Screenwriters

Being a screenwriter in Hollywood is like being a eunuch at an orgy. Worse, actually, at least the eunuch is allowed to watch.

- Albert Brooks

source: "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Hollywood, Watches, Screenwriters, Eunuchs

I have a lot of screenwriter friends and many of them have had an experience where they aren't even welcome on set during production.

- Diablo Cody

source: "Diablo Cody Talks YOUNG ADULT, the EVIL DEAD Remake, SWEET VALLEY HIGH, Her Directorial Debut, and a Lot More". Interview with Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub, collider.com. December 16, 2011.

topic: Welcome, Screenwriters, Productions

Too few journalists become screenwriters. I say to all the would-be screenwriters: Become journalists. And I’ll say to working journalists: Do not stay journalists. Become screenwriters.

- Nora Ephron

topic: Would Be, Journalist, Screenwriters

You sell a screenplay like you sell a car. If someone drives it off a cliff, that's it.

- Rita Mae Brown

topic: Car, Cliffs, Like You, Jumping Off A Cliff, Screenwriting

If you're just creative, you'll always have to rely on technical people. If you're creative and technical, you're unstoppable.

- Robert Rodriguez

topic: People, Creative, Unstoppable, Creativeness, Professionalism

Tagore once said - art has to be beautiful, but, before that, it has to be truthful.

- Ritwik Ghatak

source: "Cinema and I" by Ritwik Ghatak, (pp. 75), 1987.

topic: Beautiful, Art, Truth, Tagore, Screenwriters

Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.

- Buster Keaton

source: "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Long, Tragedy, Comedy, Long Shots, Screenwriters

When you hit a wall – of your own imagined limitations – just kick it in.

- Sam Shepard

source: "Remembering Sam Shepard: The Pulitzer-Winning Playwright and Author's 10 Best Quotes on Writing, Love and Life" by Olivia Ladd, parade.com. July 31, 2017.

topic: Motivational, Moving On, Success, Opportunity Knocks, Screenwriters

When I was young, I believed in three things: Marxism, the redemptive power of cinema, and dynamite. Now I just believe in dynamite.

- Sergio Leone

source: Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

topic: Believe, Cinema, Three, Cinematography, Screenwriters

A lot of college graduates approach me about becoming screenwriters. I tell them, 'Do not become a screenwriter, become a journalist,' because journalists go into worlds that are not their own. Kids who go to Hollywood write coming-of-age stories for their first scripts, about what happened to them when they were sixteen. Then they write the summer camp script. At the age of twenty-three they haven't produced anything, and that's the end of the career.

- Nora Ephron

source: "Nora on Hollywood: In Her Own Words", www.hollywoodreporter.com. July 10, 2012.

topic: Summer, Writing, Kids, Coming Of Age, Summer Camp

I started writing morning pages just to keep my hand in, you know, just because I was a writer and I didn't know what else to do but write. And then one day as I was writing, a character came sort of strolling in and I realized, Oh my God, I don't have to be just a screenwriter. I can write novels.

- Julia Cameron

topic: Morning, Writing, Character, Screenwriters

Here's my unsolicited advice to any aspiring screenwriters who might be reading this: Don’t ever agonize about the hordes of other writers who are ostensibly your competition. No one else is capable of doing what you do.

- Diablo Cody

topic: Reading, Advice, Competition, Screenwriters, Unsolicited Advice

It's very hard to be a screenwriter. I remember getting a couple of awards. I got a PEN West award a million years ago when I did Running on Empty, and I sat in the room with all these writers. They wrote everything from novels to non-fiction to children's books to journalism - any kind of writing - and I realized that there was no one in the room who would ever read anything I'd written.

- Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal

topic: Running, Children, Couple, Screenwriters

I counted it up once. I think I have written 45 full screenplays. Of those, maybe 15 have been shot, in some form. That's a pretty good track record, but it's not 100%. It is frustrating that, as a screenwriter, I've seen all those movies and they don't exist in the real world. They're juts inside my head and on those pages.

- John August

source: Source: collider.com

topic: Real, Thinking, Track, Screenwriters

I think what's important for kids to know is that your decisions here on earth matter, your behavior matters and how you treat other people matters.

- Matt Damon

source: "Matt Damon: I Want to 'Raise My Four Girls to Be Strong Women' " by Jeanne Wolf, parade.com. October 21, 2010.

topic: Inspirational, Kids, Thinking, Social Interaction, Interacting With Others

Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple

- Gene Wilder

topic: Invention, Electricity, Evaporation, Perspiration, Butterscotch

I believe the common denominator of the universe is not harmony; but chaos, hostility and murder.

- Werner Herzog

source: "Grizzly Man", 2006.

topic: Believe, Common, Chaos, Screenwriters

Self-sacrifice? But it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed.

- Ayn Rand

topic: Sacrifice, Self, Self Sacrifice, Fountain Head, Screenwriters

The nation which once held the creed that greatness is achieved by production, is now told that it is achieved by squalor.

- Ayn Rand

source: Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.382, Hamilton Books

topic: Greatness, Novelists, Philosopher, Productions, Squalor

As a writer, I demand the right to write any character in the world that I want to write. I demand the right to be them, I demand the right to think them and I demand the right to tell the truth as I see they are.

- Quentin Tarantino

source: "The Quentin Tarantino race debate isn't black and white" by Steve Rose, www.theguardian.com. October 13, 2015.

topic: Character, Writing, Thinking, Screenwriting, Screenwriters

Time is a precious thing. Never waste it.

- Gene Wilder

source: "Fictional character: Willy Wonka". "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory", www.imdb.com. 1971.

topic: Waste, Precious Things, Wasting My Time, Screenwriters

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

- John Hughes

topic: Inspirational, Funny, Life, Best Film, Memorable Movie

I am. I think. I will.

- Ayn Rand

source: Ayn Rand (2016). “Anthem”, p.46, Xist Publishing

topic: Thinking, Novelists, Philosopher, Screenwriters

What did you expect? 'Welcome, sonny?' 'Make yourself at home?' 'Marry my daughter?' You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know . . . morons.

- Gene Wilder

source: "Fictional character: Jim". "Blazing Saddles", www.imdb.com. 1974.

topic: Daughter, Home, Simple, Blazing, Screenwriters

Courage is like a muscle. We strengthen it by use.

- Ruth Gordon

topic: Inspirational, Women, Use, I Am Strong, Powerful Women

Joy seems to me a step beyond happiness- happiness is a sort of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you're lucky. Joy is a light that fills you with hope and faith and love.

- Adela Rogers St. Johns

source: "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Happiness, Light, Joy, Hope And Faith, Faith And Love

Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.

- Jim Jarmusch

source: "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Dream, Book, Inspiration, Film Music, Inspiration And Art

If a story doesn't give you a hard-on in the first couple of scenes, throw it in the ***** garbage.

- Samuel Fuller

source: Samuel Fuller, Christa Fuller, Jerome Rudes (2002). “A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting and Filmmaking”, Knopf

topic: Couple, Giving, Stories, Screenwriting, Screenwriters

That's the funny thing about life. We're rarely aware of the bullets we dodge. The just-misses. The almost-never-happeneds. We spend so much time worrying about how the future is going to play out and not nearly enough time admiring the precious perfection of the present.

- Lauren Miller

topic: Funny Things, Play, Worry, Cherish Every Moment, Live Life Happy

Failure is a badge of honor. It means you risked failure. And if you don’t risk failure, you’re never going to do anything that’s different from what you’ve already done or what somebody else has done.

- Charlie Kaufman

topic: Encouraging, Courage, Failure, Risk-taking, Screenwriters

It’s about misunderstandings between people and places, being disconnected and looking for moments of connection. There are so many moments in life when people don’t say what they mean, when they are just missing each other, waiting to run into each other in a hallway.

- Sofia Coppola

topic: Life, Running, Missing Someone, Missing Each Other, Insincere

The world needs you. It doesn't need you at a party having read a book about how to appear smart at parties - these books exist, and they're tempting - but resist falling into that trap. The world needs you at the party starting real conversations, saying, 'I don't know,' and being kind.

- Charlie Kaufman

source: "Screenwriters' Lecture: Charlie Kaufman". BAFTA Lecture, www.bafta.org. September 30, 2011.

topic: Smart, Real, Fall, Social Interaction, False Appearances

Certain experiences you can't survive, and afterward you don't fully exist, even if you failed to die.

- Nic Pizzolatto

source: Nic Pizzolatto (2011). “Galveston: A Novel”, p.65, Simon and Schuster

topic: Certain, Screenwriters

God gave me a great body and it's my duty to take care of my physical temple.

- Jean-Claude Van Damme

topic: Beauty, Body, Care, Physical Appearance, Favor Of God

You're nothing short of my everything.

- Ralph Block

topic: Romantic Love, Cute Romantic, Screenwriters

When in doubt, blow something up.

- J. Michael Straczynski

topic: Writing, Blow, Doubt, Black Humor, Screenwriters

Cultural differences should not separate us from each other, but rather cultural diversity brings a collective strength that can benefit all of humanity." Also: "Intercultural dialogue is the best guarantee of a more peaceful, just and sustainable world.

- Robert Alan Aurthur

topic: Differences, Diversity, Peaceful, Intercultural, Cultural Differences

We weep for a bird’s cry, but not for a fish’s blood. Blessed are those with a voice.

- Mamoru Oshii

source: "Fictional character: Major Motoko Kusanagi". "Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence", www.imdb.com. 2004.

topic: Blessed, Blessing, Blood, Blessed Are Those, Screenwriters

The Strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them.

- Gene Roddenberry

source: "Earth: Final Conflict". Tv series. Season 3, Episode 14: "Scorched Earth", February 07, 2000.

topic: War, Fighting, Civilization, Preventing, Screenwriters

The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours

- Alan Bennett

source: The History Boys, www.imdb.com. 2006.

topic: Taken, Reading, Book, Handshake, Beautiful Moments

My teacher once told me – ”No one is perfect……..that is why pencils have erasers.”

- Mahesh Bhatt

topic: Screenwriters

When men abandon reason, physical force becomes their only means of dealing with one another and of settling disagreements.

- Ayn Rand

topic: Mean, Men, Reason, Interacting With Others, Physical Force

All the reasons which made the initiation of physical force evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative.

- Ayn Rand

topic: Evil, Use, Moral, Physical Force, Imperatives

The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. And that's what you've given me. That's what I'd hoped to give you forever

- Nicholas Sparks

source: FaceBook post by Nicholas Sparks from Oct 31, 2011

topic: Love, Best Friend, Romantic, Perfect Love, Romantic Movie Love

You have to love what you do, and you have to need it like you need air. And there's nothing else that would give me the same degree of satisfaction as acting, which is why I can't walk away from it.

- Wentworth Miller

topic: Air, Giving, Acting, Screenwriters, Self-satisfaction

Choose Life over the other stuff. Get out of your head. Live. Dress up. Eat. Touch people. Help out. Give up. Love people. Give your best away. There’s more. What’s the problem? Relax. You’re going to die. Throw a party. Eat off my plate. Sing to me. Meet me in the bedroom. Get a massage. Give one. Let your amazement out into the room. Pry open the box you hide your joy in. Be a poem.

- John Patrick Shanley

topic: Love, Life, Giving Up, Choose Life, Screenwriters

You need contrast and conflict in order to tell a story. Stories need to have dark and light, turmoil, all those things. But that does not mean the filmmaker has to suffer in order to show the suffering. Stories should have the suffering, not the people.

- David Lynch

topic: Mean, Dark, Light, Storyline, Screenwriters

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.

- Alan Alda

source: Alan Alda's commencement speech at Connecticut College in New London, www.graduationwisdom.com. 1980.

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Creativity, Discovering Yourself, Inspirations Being Yourself

The Alexander Technique works... I recommend it enthusiastically to anyone who has neck pains or back pain.

- Roald Dahl

topic: Pain, Healing, Health, Back Pain, Screenwriters

All drama is conflict. Without conflict, there is no action. Without action, there is no character. Without character, there is no story. And without story, there is no screenplay.

- Syd Field

source: Source: bobmorris.biz

topic: Drama, Character, Stories, Screenwriting, Cinematography

We’re living in an acquisitive capitalist society that is fundamentally anti-family and fundamentally uncomfortable with just enjoying being human. We’d rather shop than live, acquire than love and stare into a screen than hold each other.

- Frank Schaeffer

source: "Sometimes Youthful Stupidity is a Better way to Find Happiness than Making Mature Choices" by Frank Schaeffer, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 11, 2014.

topic: Love, Life, Family, Holding Hands, Screenwriters

The witching hour, somebody had once whispered to her, was a special moment in the middle of the night when every child and every grown-up was in a deep deep sleep, and all the dark things came out from hiding and had the world all to themselves.

- Roald Dahl

topic: Children, Sleep, Dark, Night Time, Special Moments

America's founding Ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more - and nothing less.

- Ayn Rand

topic: Rights, America, Principles, Screenwriters