Scripts Quotes

• The difference between life and the movies is that a script has to make sense, and life doesn't.

  Joseph L. Mankiewicz

  Life, Differences, Make Sense

  52 Copy quote

• I like it when you read a script and there's the part that you show to the other characters and then there's the part that only the audience knows.

  Anjelica Huston

  Character, Shows, Audience

  14 Copy quote

• If the script's good, everything you need is in there. I just try and feel it, and do it honestly. I also don't learn things for auditions, because I feel like it's just a test of memorizing rather than being real. Maybe every other actor would think that was terrible, I don't know. But it seems to have worked for me, so far.

  Olivia Colman

  Real, Thinking, Trying

  5 Copy quote

• When I started out, nobody gave me scripts, so I had to write...

  Ang Lee

  Writing

  "Ang Lee and James Schamus". The Guardian Interview, www.theguardian.com. November 7, 2000.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I wanted to put a reference to masturbation in one of the scripts for the Sandman. It was immediately cut by the editor [Karen Berger]. She told me, "There's no masturbation in the DC Universe." To which my reaction was, "Well, that explains a lot about the DC Universe."

  Neil Gaiman

  Cutting, Editors, Sandman

  "The Sandman Companion". Book by Hy Bender, 1999.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• When I sent those scripts, that was the lowest point of my life. We'd just had our second son, and when I went to collect them from hospital, I went to the bank to try and get some money to buy some diapers, the screen showed I've got $26 left.

  Ang Lee

  Son, Trying, Diapers

  "Ang Lee and James Schamus". The Guardian Interview, www.theguardian.com. November 7, 2000.

  59 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's hard to find scripts that know what they are from page one to page 115.

  David Duchovny

  Pages, Knows, Hard

  5 Copy quote

• Independent will is our capacity to act. It gives us the power to transcend our paradigms, to swim upstream, to rewrite our scripts, to act based on principle rather than reacting based on emotion or circumstance.

  Stephen Covey

  Freedom, Independent, Giving

  Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, Rebecca R. Merrill (1995). “First Things First”, p.60, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I write scripts to serve as skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images.

  Ingmar Bergman

  Writing, Skeletons, Flesh

  The New York Times, January 22, 1978.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• You define your own life. Don't let other people write your script.

  Oprah Winfrey

  Writing, Positivity, People

  FaceBook post by Oprah Winfrey from Sep 07, 2011

  81 Copy quote

  Show source

• If God is the author of life, there must be a script.

  Ravi Zacharias

  Life, God, Religious

  FaceBook post by Ravi Zacharias from Jul 07, 2013

  37 Copy quote

  Show source

• I wrote the script of Patton. I had this very bizarre opening where he stands up in front of an American flag and gives this speech. Ultimately, I was fired. When the script was done, they hired another writer and that script was forgotten.

  Francis Ford Coppola

  Giving, Flags, Done

  8 Copy quote

• There's one great script that hit my desk that I didn't change at all, and that was True Romance.

  Tony Scott

  Romance, True Romance, Desks

  44 Copy quote

• The most important thing is the story. Not the script, but the story.

  Richard D. Zanuck

  Important, Stories, Important Things

  45 Copy quote

• The reason I turn down 99% of a hundred, I mean a thousand, scripts is because romantic comedies are often very romantic but seldom very funny.

  Hugh Grant

  Mean Girls, Romantic, Comedy

  9 Copy quote

• If you are making a script based on a book it can be frustrating going back to the source novel, because you're turning the story into a totally different thing; the narrative of film is different from that of a book.

  Clive Owen

  Book, Different, Stories

  6 Copy quote

• Here's what I didn't know when I was starting out that I now know…I thought when you were starting out it was really hard to write because you hadn't broken in yet, you hadn't really hit your stride yet. What I found out paradoxically is that the next script you write doesn't get easier because you wrote one before…each one gets harder by a factor of 10.

  Shane Black

  Writing, Broken, Starting Out

  15 Copy quote

• I think a badly crafted, great idea for a new film with a ton of spelling mistakes is just 100 times better than a well-crafted stale script.

  Alexander Payne

  Mistake, Thinking, Ideas

  17 Copy quote

• Most aspiring screenwriters simply don't spend enough time choosing their concept. It's by far the most common mistake I see in spec scripts. The writer has lost the race right from the gate. Months - sometimes years - are lost trying to elevate a film idea that by its nature probably had no hope of ever becoming a movie.

  Terry Rossio

  Mistake, Race, Years

  44 Copy quote

• I was a novelist first. But in the mid 80s, I did work in television for ten years. And yes, that was frequently the reaction to my scripts. People would say, you know, George, this is great. We love it, a terrific script, but it would cost five times our budget to shoot this.

  George R. R. Martin

  Years, People, Cost

  "'Thrones' Author George R.R. Martin Plays Not My Job". "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" with Peter Sagal, www.npr.org. September 14, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You read a script and its based on 'Reservoir Dogs' and 'Pulp Fiction', and it goes right in the bin.

  Tim Roth

  Movie, Dog, Fiction

  7 Copy quote

• The secret of making movies is having the strongest possible script.

  Harvey Weinstein

  Secret, Strongest

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

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• Acting should be bigger than life. Scripts should be bigger than life. It should all be bigger than life.

  Bette Davis

  Acting, Bigger Than Life, Should

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• You can't start a movie by having the attitude that the script is finished, because if you think the script is finished, your movie is finished before the first day of shooting.

  Steven Spielberg

  Attitude, Thinking, Shooting

  8 Copy quote

• When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, 'It's in the script.' If he says, 'But what's my motivation?, ' I say, 'Your salary.'

  Alfred Hitchcock

  Motivational, Character, Salary

  34 Copy quote