Screenwriting Quotes

Screenwriting is not an artform, it is a punishment from God.

— Fran Lebowitz

The road to Hell is paved with unbought stuffed dogs.

— Ernest Hemingway

“Do you want it good or Tuesday?”

— Jimmy Sangster

I'm first and foremost interested in the story, the characters.

— David Lean

It's always the story that interests me.

— Vincente Minnelli

All writing is discipline, but screenwriting is a drill sergeant.

— Robert McKee

“Novelist by day; screenwriter by night.”

— A.D. Posey

Once you crack the script, everything else follows.

— Ridley Scott

[Making movies is] 80% script and 20% getting great actors. There's nothing else to it.

— William Wyler

I studied screenwriting at film school and was constantly learning how to construct three-act dramas.

— Tobias Lindholm

Screenwriting Joe Eszterhas have always talked about the charm of evil.

— Chris Hayes

“The answer to the question, 'where's the drama?' is another question: 'what's the problem?”

— Billy Marshall Stoneking

The script is what you've dreamed up-this is what it should be. The film is what you end up with.

— George Lucas

Screenwriting is no more complicated than old French torture chambers, I think. It's about as simple as that.

— James L. Brooks

I'm very lucky. I actually like screenwriting. I rarely feel a sense of doom going to my desk.

— Simon Beaufoy

Give me a good script, and I'll be a hundred times better as a director.

— George Cukor

The screenplay is so well-written in a scruffy, fanzine way that you want to rub noses in it - the noses of…

— Roger Ebert

All drama is conflict. Without conflict, there is no action. Without action, there is no character. Without character, there is no story.…

— Syd Field

I've taught both screenwriting and playwriting, and playwriting is both much harder and much more rewarding. One can teach people how to…

— David Ives

I find playwriting to be incredibly difficult compared to screenwriting. Part of it is that I grew up watching movies and not…

— Zoe Kazan

My screenwriting credits in my career are probably not dissimilar to some other ones in the sense that a lot of the…

— Dan Gilroy

If you put someone in a room with no script to direct, they're just going to sit there. Writing scripts is the…

— John Patrick Shanley

The movies are fun, but I'm a novelist. In many ways, screenwriting is much easier than writing novels. I find screenplays twenty…

— Nicholas Sparks

I majored in screenwriting and playwriting in school - and wanted to make films as a career. But when I directed my…

— Mike Birbiglia

I usually write very few stage directions. I think a lot of that is a waste of time. The art of screenwriting…

— Scott Frank

The whole purpose of screenwriting is to convey everything through action and dialogue and not explanation and exposition. To me, there are…

— Jonathan Tropper

I discovered John Truby ten years ago when a friend told me about his screenwriting course. I studied Truby's principles for a…

— Caroline Lawrence

Film’s thought of as a director’s medium because the director creates the end product that appears on the screen. It’s that stupid…

— Billy Wilder

“I think, because…well, I like the idea of coming up with a story that never existed before, but I don’t really want…

— Melissa Keil

Scripts are what matter. If you get the foundations right and then you get the right ingredients on top, you stand a…

— Tim Bevan

In fiction, I have a residual guilt when I focus on story over language or mood or whatever - the more "literary"…

— Nick Antosca

I've often said, not totally jokingly, that screenwriting doesn't really qualify as real writing at all. You don't string sentences into paragraphs.…

— Jonathan Raymond

I'm a playwright by trade, and in theater, writers have complete control over everything. Nobody can change a word without your permission.…

— David Lindsay-Abaire

“Watch movies. Read screenplays. Let them be your guide. […] Yes, McKee has been able to break down how the popular screenplay…

— Brian Koppelman

A dramatic writer should never tell anything he can show.

— Nunnally Johnson

I have no problems or issues with screenwriting in general.

— Bret Easton Ellis

Songwriting and screenwriting aren't that different to me.

— Billy Bob Thornton

My entry into screenwriting was not smooth.

— Jon Ronson

I want to get off with the screenwriting.

— Obie Trice

All screenwriting books are bullshit, all. Watch movies, read screenplays. Let them be your guide.

— Brian Koppelman