Screenwriting Quotes · Page 3

I just stopped playing. I did some screenwriting and got into the nature thing. Music kind of went away.

— Billy Squier

The old days of screenwriting, and myths about screenwriting, are maybe over. It's a literary form, if you can wake up to…

— William Monahan

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

— Louis Malle

If the script's good, everything you need is in there. I just try and feel it, and do it honestly.

— Olivia Colman

There's a satisfaction I get from writing fiction that I will never get from screenwriting.

— Jonathan Tropper

“To paraphrase Muggeridge: Everything is a parable that God is speaking to us, the art of life is to get the message.”

— Chester Elijiah Branch

I teach a course in screenwriting at Columbia, but I've never taken a course and I've never read a book about it!

— Paul Schrader

“ Karl Marx: "Religion is the opiate of the masses." Carrie Fisher: "I did masses of opiates religiously.”

— Carrie Fisher

Everything starts with writing. And then to support your vision, your ideas, your philosophy, your jokes, whatever, you've gotta perform them and/or…

— Mel Brooks

It's not so much that I enjoy screenwriting, though mostly I do, but the difference is, with adaptations, somebody else has done…

— Tom Stoppard

I didnt write Snow White for any class, but I got bitten by the screenwriting bug and wrote a couple of scripts…

— Evan Daugherty

I had always been interested in screenwriting, ever since I could write things down as a child. Obviously, I started as an…

— John Francis Daley

Fiction and screenwriting blend for me. I feel like being a TV writer/screenwriter has definitely made my fiction writing better, although I…

— Nick Antosca

I became a script writer with absolutely no idea of how to write a script whatsoever. I still feel a bit of…

— Nick Cave

“[G]reat stories communicate simple truths that reflect the poetic dimensions of the human soul. Not only do powerful characters help us understand…

— Kate Wright

For me, as a writer who comes from quite a naturalistic tradition, British screenwriting is quite delicate, quite small, and rarified in…

— Simon Beaufoy

I've come to view screenwriting assignments as playwriting grants, because they provide a considerable financial cushion. However, they can also be extremely…

— Donald Margulies

And how deeply do I let business considerations affect [screenwriting] choices that might otherwise be more or less esthetic? . . .…

— Edward Zwick

All these teachers and [screenwriting] books mean you see movies that have been worked over by more committees wielding more rules, that…

— Paul Schrader

What makes screenplays difficult are the things that require the most discipline and care and are just not seen by most people.…

— Robert Towne

When you're writing a script you have the option to embellish on life or switch the order of events or make it…

— Lena Dunham

You know, my problem with most screenwriting is it is a blueprint. It's like they're afraid to write the damn thing. And…

— Quentin Tarantino

I was about 14 when I started with a theater group; it was like a stage group on the weekends alongside school.…

— Imogen Poots

I learned that you really don't have any control as a writer. Waah, waah, waah. Big deal. Unless you're the director on…

— Bret Easton Ellis

Screenwriting and making movies is really playing make-believe like most of us did as children.

— Gabriel Campisi

I've been doing a bit of screenwriting and producing, and even a bit of directing.

— Irvine Welsh

Screenwriting is an opportunity to fly first class, be treated like a celebrity, sit around the pool and be betrayed.

— Ian Mcewan

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

— Charlie Kaufman

If a story doesn't give you a hard-on in the first couple of scenes, throw it in the goddamned garbage.

— Samuel Fuller

“Collaborating on a film script involves two people sitting in a room separated by the silence of two minds working together.”

— Darlene Craviotto

I think if I've worked anything through with screenwriting it's that I'm not going to be able to work anything through.

— Charlie Kaufman

To make a great film you need three things - the script, the script and the script.

— Alfred Hitchcock

It's possible for me to make a bad movie out of a good script, but I can't make a good movie from…

— George Clooney

'The Fourth Hand' was a novel that came from twenty years of screenwriting concurrently with whatever novel I'm writing.

— John Irving

“people don't really want original stories. they want different versions of the same story. this is called meta-narrative.”

— Chester Elijah Branch

Scripts are what matter... if you get those foundations wrong, then you absolutely don’t stand a shot.

— Tim Bevan

I often attribute my screenwriting to journalism because they drill in the who, what, when, where and why - but we really…

— Mara Brock Akil

I tend to jot down moments, lines, interactions that don't really make any sense. I try and explain these scattered notes to…

— Asghar Farhadi

“Plays are nearly always about the consequences of events while films are usually about the events. The what-happens-next factor is essential in…

— Richard Toscan

I don't mind doing scripted material. It's actually kind of a relief, because improvising is a little bit like screenwriting on your…

— John C. Reilly