Screenplays Quotes - Page 2

• If it isn’t for the writing, we’ve got nothing. Writers are the most important people in Hollywood. And we must never let them know it.

  Irving Thalberg

  Writing, Knowing, People

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• I did it [photojournalism] as something that was really rewarding to do, given the opportunity to express myself about something I cared about, and also to learn a lot by watching filmmakers I admired. In a sense, it was my film school. After doing it for a few years, I decided that the time had come to get it together and do some work of my own. So I stopped doing that and wrote some screenplays on speculation, because even though I wanted to direct, to direct you need a lot of money.

  Curtis Hanson

  School, Opportunity, Years

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• 'Juno' really changed things for me and I get a lot of screenplays come in now, but I like to self-generate and I like to kind of pursue my own ideas. And I think the more personal the better.

  Jason Reitman

  Thinking, Self, Ideas

  "Jason Reitman Takes Off with Up in the Air". movieweb.com. February 24,2010.

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• Usually if you read a screenplay, no matter who's writing it, the bad guy is always written as a one-dimensional bad guy.

  Mickey Rourke

  Writing, Guy, Matter

  The Tavis Smiley Show, www.pbs.org. November 10, 2011.

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• The way you write a screenplay is that you close your eyes and run the movie in your head and then you write it down.

  Salman Rushdie

  Running, Writing, Eye

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• After I sold my screenplay adaptation of 'Rain Fall' to Sony Pictures, I had no more creative involvement.

  Barry Eisler

  Rain, Fall, Creative

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• A screenplay is not a finished product; a novel is. A screenplay is a blueprint for something - for a building that will most likely never be built.

  Nicholas Meyer

  Building, Novel, Blueprints

  "Screenwriters on Screen-Writing: The Best in the Business Discuss Their Craft". Book by Joel Engel, 1995.

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• I don't card out my screenplays ever. I just have an idea I just sit down and write I don't edit.

  Nia Vardalos

  Writing, Ideas, Cards

  "TriBeCa Interview: My Life In Ruins with Nia Vardalos". Interview with Matthew-Lee Erlbach, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 4, 2009.

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• I always say when you write a book, you're a 'one-man band.' Whereas, when you finish a screenplay, it's just a sketch.

  Diablo Cody

  Book, Writing, Men

  "‘Young Adult’ Writer Diablo Cody: We Never Really Grow Up" by Margaret Bristol, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 09, 2011.

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• When writing screenplays, it's a matter of remembering to leave off the page anything and everything that doesn't appear on the screen.

  Taiye Selasi

  Writing, Anything And Everything, Pages

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• Whether I'm in front of the camera, behind the camera, at my computer writing a novel or a screenplay, as long as I get to entertain someone out there, I'm happy.

  Chris Colfer

  Writing, Long, Cameras

  "Glee’s Chris Colfer". Interview with Amanda Sims, www.timeout.com. July 17, 2012.

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• 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

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• I look for an interesting and often times, fresh character. Something different that what is done all the time or than I've done recently. I look at who is directing. Those two variables as well as a third, which is the content and the quality of the screenplay. I look at the arcs of the scenes and characters and relationships.

  William Baldwin

  Character, Two, Interesting

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

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• Doing TV shows helps me a lot in my screenplay writing and filmmaking, especially since my TV shows are in different formats: comedy sketches, talk shows, debate programs, art variety shows, quiz shows. These enable me to meet interesting people with interesting stories and to learn about interesting subjects, all of which I can reflect into film.

  Takeshi Kitano

  Art, Writing, Tv Shows

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• I've been a screenwriter for twenty-five years. Every one of my books have been optioned for movies and I have written a few of those screenplays.

  Alice Hoffman

  Book, Years, Twenties

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• Normally you read a screenplay - and I read a lot of them - and the characters don't feel like people. They feel like plot devices or cliches or stereotypes.

  Joseph Gordon-Levitt

  Character, People, Plot

  "Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt". "The Tavis Smiley show" with Tavis Smiley, www.pbs.org. September 28, 2011.

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• I love making movies and hope to write my own screenplay someday and do some producing and be behind-the-scenes as well.

  Victoria Justice

  Writing, Behind The Scenes, Someday

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• I don't generate a storyline and then fill it out in the course of writing. The story actually generates in the course of the writing. It's one of the reasons I've never been comfortable doing screenplays, because in order to get the contract for the screenplay, you have to sit down and tell them what's going to happen.

  William Gibson

  Writing, Order, Down And

  Interview with Zack Handlen, www.avclub.com. September 7, 2010.

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• I think I've had pretty good experiences for the most part with the people who have directed my screenplays.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Thinking, People, Good Experiences

  Interview with David Cronenberg, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 24, 2008.

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• I do have some theatrical background. I've written plays and seen plays and read plays. But I also read novels. One thing I don't read is screenplays.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Play, Novel, Backgrounds

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• I present the nominees, well, not me the Voice of God, for Best Screenplay.

  Emma Thompson

  Voice, Wells, Voice Of God

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• Really, when I write a book I'm the only one I have to please. That's the beauty of writing a book instead of a screenplay.

  Elmore Leonard

  Book, Writing, Please

  "Elmore Leonard’s Secret: 'Clean Living, and a Fast Outfield'". Interview with Jon Wiener, lareviewofbooks.org. August 20, 2013.

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• I didn't know anything about writing a screenplay, but somehow I ended up rewriting a screenplay.

  Kate DiCamillo

  Writing, Rewriting, Knows

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• I don't begin a novel or a screenplay until I know the ending. And I don't mean only that I have to know what happens. I mean that I have to hear the actual sentences. I have to know what atmosphere the words convey.

  John Irving

  Writing, Mean, Atmosphere

  "Wrestling Life Into Fable". Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 3, 2005.

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• I was originally casted to be in the Superman movie but I read the script and realized that it was mysteriously similar to my screenplay for Zach Braff the Movie.

  Zach Braff

  Scripts, Superman Movie

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