Screenwriting Quotes - Page 2

• I think, in a weird way, the reason I was drawn to screenwriting and the reason I really love doing it is because I love writing dialogue.

  David Benioff

  Writing, Thinking, Way

  Interview with Jason Bateman, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 30, 2008.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't think screenwriting is therapeutic. It's actually really, really hard for me. It's not an enjoyable process.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Thinking, Process, Enjoyable

  12 Copy quote

• The road to hell is paved with adverbs.

  Stephen King

  Movie, Writing, Sisterhood

  FaceBook post by Stephen King from Feb 06, 2013

  81 Copy quote

  Show source

• You can't fix a bad script after you start shooting. The problems on the page only get bigger as they move to the big screen.

  Howard Hawks

  Moving, Directors, Shooting

  28 Copy quote

• When you're writing a script you have the option to embellish on life or switch the order of events or make it generally more cinematic. I would stick too closely to my own experience and not necessarily think about the fact that it needs to have an event happen. Realising that I could channel my own experience into a story that was slightly more cinematic was a very important moment for me - allowing myself to accept that the kind of screenwriting I'm doing is a work of fiction.

  Lena Dunham

  Writing, Thinking, Order

  The Time Out Interview, www.timeout.com. January 20, 2015.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I feel I do my best work when it's all there on the page, and I feel that the character is very vivid as I read the script and I'm not having to create stuff and trying to cobble together something. If I have to do that, then I don't entirely trust what I'm doing.

  Guy Pearce

  Character, Trying, Together

  7 Copy quote

• Once you crack the script, everything else follows.

  Ridley Scott

  Directors, Cracks, Scripts

  25 Copy quote

• I was always writing stories, even as a kid. I always wanted to be in the plays and do that sort of thing. Screenwriting started to really appeal to me because the idea of being able to make things that many people got to see became very captivating.

  Katie Wech

  Writing, Kids, Play

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you have someone on the set for the hair, why would you not have someone for the words?

  Louis Malle

  Hair, Ifs

  10 Copy quote

• All screenwriting books are bullshit, all. Watch movies, read screenplays. Let them be your guide.

  Brian Koppelman

  Book, Bullshit, Watches

  "Six Second Screenplay Tips from Screenwriter Brian Koppelman (on Vine!)" by Paula Bernstein, www.indiewire.com. September 27, 2013.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I would love to see more women directors because they represent half of the population and gave birth to the whole world. Without them the rest [of the world] are not getting to know the whole story.

  Jane Campion

  Women, Writing, Feminist

  "Wanted: female film-makers" by Viv Groskop, www.theguardian.com. May 19, 2009.

  61 Copy quote

  Show source

• [Making movies is] 80% script and 20% getting great actors. There's nothing else to it.

  William Wyler

  Directors, Actors, Scripts

  10 Copy quote

• What makes screenplays difficult are the things that require the most discipline and care and are just not seen by most people. I'm talking about movement - screenwriting is related to math and music, and if you zig here, you know you have to zag there. It's like the descriptions for a piece of music - you go fast or slow or with feeling. It's the same.

  Robert Towne

  Math, Talking, Discipline

  11 Copy quote

• For me, screenwriting is all about setting characters in motion and as a writer just chasing them. They should tell you what they’ll do in any scene you put them in.

  Justin Zackham

  Character, Scene, Should

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Working at Pixar has been like my graduate school for screenwriting.

  Michael Arndt

  School, Graduates, Pixar

  9 Copy quote

• Screenwriting is always about what people say or do, whereas good writing is about a thought process or an abstract image or an internal monologue, none of which works on screen.

  David Nicholls

  Writing, People, Abstract

  8 Copy quote

• The screenplay is so well-written in a scruffy, fanzine way that you want to rub noses in it - the noses of those zombie writers who take 'screenwriting' classes that teach them the formulas for 'hit films.'

  Roger Ebert

  Class, Zombie, Noses

  Roger Ebert (1996). “Roger Ebert's Video Companion, 1997 Edition”, Andrews McMeel Pub

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have always credited the writer of the original material above the title: Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Bram Stoker's Dracula, or John Grisham's The Rainmaker. I felt that I didn't have the right to Francis Coppola's anything unless I had written the story and the screenplay.

  Francis Ford Coppola

  Directors, Titles, Stories

  Buography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  66 Copy quote

• Screenwriting is a terrible way to make a living and I always try to talk anyone out of it. Until you sit in a story meeting with studio executives with no particular ability or actors who haven't even graduated high school telling you exactly how to change your script, you haven't experienced what it's really like to be a screenwriter in Hollywood. Also, unlike novelists and playwrights, you don't own the copyright on your original material. It hurts when you sell a project you love and then suddenly the project you really cared about will never see the light of day.

  Amy Holden Jones

  Hurt, School, Light

  4 Copy quote

• In fiction, I have a residual guilt when I focus on story over language or mood or whatever - the more "literary" things. In screenwriting, I don't have that guilt because story is the only thing. Character, dialogue, everything else - they feed into and drive story.

  Nick Antosca

  Character, Focus, Guilt

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's not so much that I enjoy screenwriting, though mostly I do, but the difference is, with adaptations, somebody else has done the hard part - made up a story, provided the characters.

  Tom Stoppard

  Character, Differences, Stories

  Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ensure that your script is watertight. If it's not on the page, it will never magically appear on the screen.

  Richard E. Grant

  Directors, Pages, Scripts

  4 Copy quote

• The movies are fun, but I'm a novelist. In many ways, screenwriting is much easier than writing novels. I find screenplays twenty times easier to write than a novel.

  Nicholas Sparks

  Fun, Writing, Twenties

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Film’s thought of as a director’s medium because the director creates the end product that appears on the screen. It’s that stupid auteur theory again, that the director is the author of the film. But what does the director shoot-the telephone book? Writers became much more important when sound came in, but they’ve had to put up a valiant fight to get the credit they deserve.

  Billy Wilder

  Stupid, Book, Fighting

  62 Copy quote