Screenplays Quotes

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

  Rita Mae Brown

  Car, Cliffs, Like You

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• Screenplays are not works of art. They are invitations to others to collaborate on a work of art.

  Paul Schrader

  Art, Works Of Art, Invitations

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• I think of myself as a guy who tries to write screenplays and now has tried to direct one. Anything more than that is meaningless and it gets in the way of being a real human being.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Real, Writing, Thinking

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• Screenplays I didn't really care about, journalism, travel books, getting my writer friends to write about their dreams or something. I just determined to write the books I had to write.

  Kazuo Ishiguro

  Dream, Travel, Book

  "Living memories". Interview with Nicholas Wroe, www.theguardian.com. February 18, 2005.

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• Something that you should take particular notice of is the fact that the best scripts have very few explanatory passages. Adding explanation to the descriptive passages of a screenplay is the most dangerous trap you can fall into. It’s easy to explain the psychological state of a character at a particular moment, but it’s very difficult to describe it through the delicate nuances of action and dialogue. Yet it is not impossible.

  Akira Kurosawa

  Believe, Fall, Character

  "Something Like An Autobiography".

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• I could be just a writer very easily. I am not a writer. I am a screenwriter, which is half a filmmaker... But it is not an art form, because screenplays are not works of art. They are invitations to others to collaborate on a work of art.

  Paul Schrader

  Art, Writing, Half

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• I've written about 15 screenplays and they all sold - they were all sold on pitches.

  Bruce Vilanch

  Written

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• He took me from not being able to write a word in terms of writing screenplays to being the king of wooden dialogue.

  George Lucas

  Kings, Writing, Able

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• And I've got some screenplays and plays ready to dip into when I need to.

  Neil LaBute

  Play, Needs, Dip

  "INTERVIEW: A Kinder, Gentler Neil LaBute? Getting Romantic With 'Possession'" by Wendy Mitchell, www.indiewire.com. August 14, 2002.

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• Because I'm the author of my screenplays I know what I'm looking for. It's true that I can be stubborn in demanding that I get what I want, but it's also a question of working with patience and love.

  Michael Haneke

  Patience, And Love, Stubborn

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• Although I write screenplays, I don't think I'm a very good writer.

  George Lucas

  Writing, Thinking, Very Good

  "Cinematic Phenomenon". Interview, www.achievement.org. June 19, 1999.

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• Most screenplays depend primarily on the vision of a director.

  Tom Skerritt

  Vision, Directors, Depends

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• Well, you just know, as a writer, I didn't really write one of the five best screenplays of the year. There were lots of brilliant screenplays; I was just one of the lucky ones who got nominated.

  Patrick Marber

  Writing, Years, Lucky

  "Closer - Patrick Marber Q&A" by Jack Foley, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• When I graduated college I needed to make money while I was pursuing acting, so I read screenplays and made a living writing coverage on them for studios.

  Sasha Alexander

  Writing, College, Acting

  Interview with Spence D., www.ign.com. August 10, 2001.

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• I did write a couple of original screenplays, but I'd rather write plays.

  Beth Henley

  Couple, Writing, Play

  "Expressing "The Misery and Confusion Truthfully": An Interview with Beth Henley". "American Drama" Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2005.

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• I've made seventeen or eighteen films now, only two of which have been original screenplays, all the others have been based on short stories or novels, and I find the long short story ideal for adaptation.

  Satyajit Ray

  Two, Long, Stories

  Satyajit Ray, Bert Cardullo (2007). “Satyajit Ray: Interviews”, p.95, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• A government institution called the Finnish Film Foundation funds filmmaking there, and I wrote several screenplays but never got any money. They were sent back to me, and they said that they were too commercial for them.

  Renny Harlin

  Movie, Government, Foundation

  Interview with Kenneth Plume, www.ign.com. April 27, 2001.

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• At the moment, I'm toying with a new idea for a book, but fully engaged with writing screenplays, so the book idea - which needs empty space in my head - is barely formed yet.

  Rose Tremain

  Book, Writing, Ideas

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• I just finished a novel, and I'm back kind of noodling on the screenplays. Screenplays are tough. I am making music, I'm just not sure what kind of music it is or where it's going.

  Michael Nesmith

  Tough, Kind, Novel

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• I write screenplays that don't get made and pilots that don't get picked up, and I re-write other people's movies, and those are all different kinds of fees.

  Bruce Vilanch

  Movie, Writing, People

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• I actually think I'm probably more interested in structure than most people who write screenplays, because I think about it.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Writing, Thinking, People

  "'It's just a big mess inside my head'". Interview with Laura Barton, www.theguardian.com. April 17, 2009.

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• The way I write is very much without kind of a goal. I have something I'm interested in and then I decide I'm going to explore it. I don't know where the characters are going to go, I don't know what the movie is going to do or what the screenplay is going to do. For me, that's the way to keep it alive.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Writing, Character, Goal

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

  Samuel Fuller

  Couple, Giving, Garbage

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

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• You use simple brushstrokes in a screenplay for things over which you would take much greater pains in a novel.

  Richard Russo

  Pain, Simple, Use

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• Every scene should be able to answer three questions: "Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don't get it? Why now?"

  David Mamet

  Three, Answers, Want

  "Crossings: David Mamet’s Work in Different Genres and Media". Book by Johan Callens, 2009.

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