Billy Wilder Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• On Ernst Lubitsch: He could do more with a closed door than other directors could do with an open fly.

  Billy Wilder

  Doors, Directors, Culture

  9 Copy quote

• I met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my life, but you - you're twenty minutes.

  Billy Wilder

  Funny, Eggs, Twenties

  "Fictional character: Lorraine". "Ace in the Hole", www.imdb.com. 1951.

  13 Copy quote

• Shoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award.

  Billy Wilder

  Inspirational, Motivational, Movie

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

  17 Copy quote

• Don't be too clever for an audience. Make it obvious. Make the subtleties obvious also.

  Billy Wilder

  Clever, Obvious, Subtlety

  24 Copy quote

• After so many drive-in waitresses becoming movie stars, there has been this real drought, when along come class; somebody who actually went to school, can spell, maybe even plays the piano. She may be a wispy, thin little thing, but when you see that girl, you know you're really in the presence of something. In that league there's only ever been Garbo, and the other Hepburn, and maybe Bergman. It's a rare quality, but boy, do you know when you've found it.

  Billy Wilder

  Girl, Stars, Real

  36 Copy quote

• Money makes even bastards legitimate.

  Billy Wilder

  Money

  12 Copy quote

• God save me from myself.

  Billy Wilder

  Catchy, Save Me

  13 Copy quote

• France is a place where the money falls apart in your hands but you can't tear the toilet paper.

  Billy Wilder

  Travel, Money, Fall

  Billy Wilder, Robert Horton (2001). “Billy Wilder: Interviews”, p.23, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  25 Copy quote

• Develop a clean line of action for your leading character

  Billy Wilder

  Character, Lines, Action

  11 Copy quote

• An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation.

  Billy Wilder

  Doors, Entering, Actors

  10 Copy quote

• I never overestimate the audience, nor do I underestimate them. I just have a very rational idea as to who we’re dealing with, and that we’re not making a picture for Harvard Law School, we’re making a picture for middle-class people, the people that you see on the subway, or the people that you see in a restaurant. Just normal people.

  Billy Wilder

  School, Law, Class

  29 Copy quote

• They've tried to manufacture other Marilyn Monroes and they will undoubtedly keep trying. But it won't work. She was an original.

  Billy Wilder

  Trying, Keep Trying, Originals

  22 Copy quote

• If something smells bad, why put your nose in it?

  Billy Wilder

  Smell, Noses, Ifs

  "Fictional character: Buljanoff". "Ninotchka", www.imdb.com. 1939.

  15 Copy quote

• My Aunt Minnie would always be punctual and never hold up production, but who would pay to see my Aunt Minnie?

  Billy Wilder

  Aunt, Pay, Punctuation

  63 Copy quote

• The ultimate trick is to convince, persuade. Every single person out there is an idiot, but collectively they're a genius.

  Billy Wilder

  Genius, Idiot, Tricks

  Billy Wilder, Robert Horton (2001). “Billy Wilder: Interviews”, p.96, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  12 Copy quote

• I, you know, am all over the place — every category of pictures I have made, good, bad or indifferent. I could not make, like Hitchcock did, one Hitchcock picture after another. … I wanted to do a Hitchcock picture, so I did `Witness for the Prosecution,’ then I was bored with it, so I moved on.

  Billy Wilder

  Bored, Moved On, Made

  19 Copy quote

• Marilyn was mean. Terribly mean. The meanest woman I have ever met around this town. I have never met anybody as mean as Marilyn Monroe or as utterly fabulous on the screen.

  Billy Wilder

  Mean, Fabulous, Towns

  Quoted in Earl Wilson, The Show Business Nobody Knows (1971)

  6 Copy quote

• Hollywood didn't kill Marilyn Monroe, it's the Marilyn Monroes who are killing Hollywood.

  Billy Wilder

  Hollywood, Killing

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

  16 Copy quote

• One's too many and a hundred's not enough.

  Billy Wilder

  Enough, Hundred

  Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett (2000). “The Lost Weekend: The Complete Screenplay”, p.11, Univ of California Press

  11 Copy quote

• Well, nobody's perfect.

  Billy Wilder

  Perfect, Nobody's Perfect, Gender

  Billy Wilder, Robert Horton (2001). “Billy Wilder: Interviews”, p.38, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  10 Copy quote

• It was a hot afternoon and I can still remember the smell of honeysuckle all along the street. How can I have known that murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle?

  Billy Wilder

  Smell, Hot, Afternoon

  12 Copy quote

• I'd worship the ground you walked on if only you walked in a better neighborhood.

  Billy Wilder

  Funny, Worship, Neighbor

  11 Copy quote

• A bad play folds and is forgotten, but in pictures we don't bury our dead. When you think it's out of your system, your daughter sees it on television and says, My father is an idiot.

  Billy Wilder

  Daughter, Father, Thinking

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

  14 Copy quote

• I don't go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons.

  Billy Wilder

  Religion, Church, Nylon

  "Fictional character: Lorraine Minosa". "Ace in the Hole", www.imdb.com. 1951.

  54 Copy quote

• My English is a mixture between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Archbishop Tutu.

  Billy Wilder

  Mixtures, Schwarzenegger

  14 Copy quote

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