Screenwriters Quotes - Page 4

• A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended.

  Ian Mcewan

  People, Novelists, Vulnerable

  "Atonement". Book by Ian McEwan, 2001.

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• Lies are neither bad nor good. Like a fire they can either keep you warm or burn you to death, depending on how they're used.

  Max Brooks

  Lying, Fire, Deceit

  Max Brooks (2006). “World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War”, p.166, Broadway Books

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• A Message to Children Who Have Read This Book - When you grow up and have children of your own, do please remember something important: a stodgy parent is no fun at all. What a child wants and deserves is a parent who is SPARKY.

  Roald Dahl

  Children, Growing Up, Fun

  "Danny, the Champion of the World". Book by Roald Dahl, 1975.

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

  Akira Kurosawa

  Directors, Want, Ifs

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• I've always felt that music is more expressive than dialogue. I've always said that my best dialogue and screenwriter is Ennio Morricone. Because, many times, it is more important a note or an orchestration than a line said.

  Sergio Leone

  Important, Lines, Notes

  Source: www.americansuburbx.com

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• I knew that [director/screenwriter] Catalina Aguilar Mastretta had an amazing take on the female psyche and the modern woman and the modern immigrant woman living in the U.S., and I really saw the need for a story told of our daily lives without being a statistic and without just trying to hit a demographic, and I felt that with this one.

  Karla Souza

  Trying, Saws, Directors

  Source: www.sheknows.com

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• Developing films with directors, developing films with actors, is a poor percentage play for a screenwriter.

  Tony Gilroy

  Play, Directors, Actors

  "Talking With Tony Gilroy". Online discuss, www.washingtonpost.com. September 27, 2007.

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• John Logan is maybe the No. 1 screenwriter in the world today, not to mention that he won a Tony for Best Play for Red. So he may just be the best writer period right now. He wrote The Aviator, and I was in New York doing a play, and he asked if they would see me for the film, just meet with me. 'Cause that's what Martin Scorsese does.

  Brent Spiner

  New York, Play, World

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• If screenwriters have to kill off a female character, they love to give her cancer. We've seen so many great actresses go down to the Big C: Ali MacGraw, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, Debra Winger, Susan Sarandon.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Cancer, Character, Giving

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• If a novelist has created vivid characters, interesting relationships, settings the reader can easily imagine, and intriguing stories, a screenwriter has loads to work with. The challenge comes with deciding what to cut and what to keep.

  Seth Grahame-Smith

  Character, Cutting, Interesting

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• About a year ago I got really exhausted from reading bad scripts and I know that I am a writer and that I have stories to tell, so I thought, 'Let's do this!' So I'm co-writing a screenplay now with another screenwriter and loving it. Absolutely loving it. And I would like to be the producer on the project and of course the lead is me.

  Kerry Washington

  Reading, Writing, Years

  Interview with Spence D., www.ign.com. August 29, 2001.

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• Most directors, I discovered, need to be convinced that the screenplay they're going to direct has something to do with them. And this is a tricky thing if you write screenplays where women have parts that are equal to or greater than the male part. And I thought, 'Why am I out there looking for directors?'—because you look at a list of directors, it's all boys. It certainly was when I started as a screenwriter. So I thought, 'I'm just gonna become a director and that'll make it easier.'

  Nora Ephron

  Writing, Boys, Directors

  "Dreams on Spec". Documentary, 2007.

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• I would say, and as I have said before, the series [Narcos] does not demonstrate real happenings but rather events that the screenwriters, in their own taste, believe depict the way we lived.

  Juan Pablo Escobar

  Real, Believe, Way

  Source: harvardpolitics.com

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• The great thing, as a screenwriter, is that you are always proud of what ends up on the screen, you are able to create something in isolation and you have a lot of freedom.

  Jamie Linden

  Proud, Able, Isolation

  Source: collider.com

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• From a writing point of view, you now have teams of screenwriters working with a director. What's lost in the process is the power of that one heart, brain, gut and soul that makes something an original piece of writing.

  Joe Eszterhas

  Team, Writing, Heart

  "I felt I had befouled myself" by Duncan Campbell, www.theguardian.com. January 30, 2004.

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• Being a good television screenwriter requires an understanding of the way film accelerates the communication of words.

  Steven Bochco

  Communication, Understanding, Television

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• And I didn't grow up wanting to be a director. I grew up wanting to be a writer, so for me, that was always the goal - to be a novelist, not a screenwriter. And I think, again, if I didn't have the novels, maybe I'd be much more frustrated by not having directed yet.

  David Benioff

  Growing Up, Thinking, Goal

  "David Benioff" by Jason Bateman, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 30, 2008.

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• When I was really young I didn't know that there was such a thing as a screenwriter. I wrote stories.

  John Sayles

  Stories, Young, Knows

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• But here's the thing: what you do as a screenwriter is you sell your copyright. As a novelist, as a poet, as a playwright, you maintain your copyright.

  Beth Henley

  Novelists, Poet, Copyright

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

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• You are the executive director and screenwriter of your life.

  Eric Thomas

  Directors, Executives

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• You get to Hollywood and you are in the land of big money where they don't like to see only one screenwriter's name. It's much better if you've got four or five.

  Nigel Kneale

  Land, Names, Hollywood

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• A screenwriter heard me read from my novel 'The Wishbones' when it was still in progress and mentioned me to some producers in Hollywood. They called, and I told them I had a novel in my drawer about a high school election that goes haywire. They asked to take a look, and my life changed pretty dramatically as a result.

  Tom Perrotta

  Life Changing, School, Progress

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• It's really hard as a screenwriter, you feel like you have a vision and then you turn it over to a director and you have to let it go.

  Lorene Scafaria

  Vision, Let It Go, Directors

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• 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

  Hollywood, Watches, Eunuchs

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

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• Whenever I work on a film, I have three rules. Only three and I tell them to every screenwriter. I say let's retain the spirit and the intent of the overall story. Let's make it the best film that we possibly can.

  Nicholas Sparks

  Three, Stories, Spirit

  Source: collider.com

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