William Monahan

You never know what people are going to go and see.

— William Monahan

The only answer to "Are you Beatles or Stones?" is, "I'm both."

— William Monahan

I never write with particular actors in mind.

— William Monahan

I'm interested in stories about human beings. I don't care where or when they are set.

— William Monahan

For some reason, I seem to work well with actors. I love working with them.

— William Monahan

Casting is all about availability, as much as anything else.

— William Monahan

In all honesty a gangster picture was the easiest kind of film for me to get made.

— William Monahan

If you see, as I do, in edited film, you're going to end up as a director.

— William Monahan

You just have to know what you want and what you're doing and it leads to a kind of general well-being, which…

— William Monahan

I'd been working so hard making the film that I hadn't even emotionally processed the fact that I was a director.

— William Monahan

I'm not a precious text protector, or anything like that, you know, because it's a much more vital form than that. You…

— William Monahan

Out of all of the Star Trek movies, I happen to like the most recent one the best. I think it was…

— William Monahan

I was particularly anxious that I shoot the tires out of the class system. All it is these days is a hobby…

— William Monahan

Whatever you cut when there's no deadline isn't really a cut. You're just pushing colors around.

— William Monahan

You know a shooter when you see it. At least the creative people do. If a picture isn't obvious in the first…

— William Monahan

When I was young I was only thinking of writing, and whatever was going on was unreal and comparatively unimportant.

— William Monahan

I think the only real referent for anybody writing drama is probably Hamlet. You have the most extreme tragic drama, this sort…

— William Monahan

There's always a great hue and cry when you sign onto a "remake," and that's always been sort of annoying me and…

— William Monahan

Yeah, well I can't see a situation where I wouldn't at least re-write as a director something I was going to direct.…

— William Monahan

When I started writing screenplays, as early as I started writing anything, I hadn't seen any ordinary screenplays. I saw movies and…

— William Monahan

The novel ceases to be looked at as a novel. Such is the overwhelming power of motion pictures. Gore Vidal pointed out…

— William Monahan

I'm more from a double world where I wasn't part of anything or invested in anything, because I was Irish, and very…

— William Monahan

Henry Adams was scared shitless, politically, by the discovery that England isn't alien to a boy from Boston, but it was true,…

— William Monahan

If I can give a young author any advice, whatsoever, never let anyone announce the film sale of your first novel. Film…

— William Monahan

I started out as a writer with an hour removed from Kingdom of Heaven. You have to make one print for the…

— William Monahan

I had a guy at the Groucho bar clawing at my arm nearly in tears saying that until he saw The Departed…

— William Monahan

I don't think Roger Ebert has ever mentioned a screenplay. He assigns every auctorial move to the director, which makes some sense…

— William Monahan

[Eugene] O'Neill made a living, certainly, at least. But each of these forms have sort of died the death in turn, and…

— William Monahan

Martin [Campbell] is very energetic and precise. He'll on the set like four hours early with a flashlight and I thought, well,…

— William Monahan

A criminal has a kind of freedom by definition that the ordinary citizen doesn't have. The criminal's able to realize himself in…

— William Monahan

The era I love most is the Federal period, just after the Revolution and the formation of the United States. The birth…

— William Monahan

Poetry died as a commercial form and then it died as a serious art form. No one serious touches it. It used…

— William Monahan

I think probably everybody works most on the beginning and the ending.

— William Monahan

I sound like Warhol but only because I'm tired.

— William Monahan

I'm not very precious at all, which I think people find surprising.

— William Monahan

You don't write for actors. Actors come for characters you've made up.

— William Monahan

Dialogue is used to reveal not what we want to say, but what we are trying to hide.

— William Monahan

Casting is always subject to availabilities.

— William Monahan

If you write a screenplay that gets circulated, you have a bigger readership than any literary novelist. And it's an educated audience…

— William Monahan

I was always entirely about work, about getting where I am now. If I'm not working I'm thinking about it, though at…

— William Monahan