Biographies Quote by John Sayles

“I don't write [screenplay character] biographies beforehand. I usually go in knowing some sequences: this is where I want to start, this is where I want to end.”

John Sayles

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Biographies Character Crafts Ends Knowing Screenplays Sequence Want Writing

More by John Sayles

But compared to writing a novel, where you can be God, I did the Bay of Pigs invasion in six pages once, and there…

John Sayles

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Not that I've always loved the movie when they finally come out, or if they ever come out-because many of them don't come out-but…

John Sayles

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I think I got spoiled and that writing a short story and getting it published, or writing a novel and getting it published, you…

John Sayles

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I never thought about being a writer as I grew up. A writer wasn't something I wanted to be. An outfielder was something to…

John Sayles

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My argument has always been that this is not an anti-Bush film, it's a pro-democracy film. And if Bush comes out on the wrong…

John Sayles

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To this day, I get rewrite offers where they say: 'We feel this script needs work with character, dialogue, plot and tone,' and when…

John Sayles

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And it was out in the theaters in two weeks. This is not, 'We're going to develop twenty-five and maybe one's going to get…

John Sayles

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The media in America has become so cowed and compromised.

John Sayles

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You get to say, 'Here's my philosophical idea about what the costume should like,' and the costume designer comes and gives you choices and…

John Sayles

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“There is great literature about imprisonment, . . . about the foot soldier, . . . about the sea -- but not one great work about flying.”

John Sayles

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Sometimes people can't afford to work for you, or they're not interested or available, and you hate to have written the whole movie with…

John Sayles

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I certainly grew up seeing more movies and television than I read books, but when it came time to do the thing itself you…

John Sayles

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Explore all 54 John Sayles quotes

More Biographies quotes

Don't be afraid of hard work. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Don't let others discourage you or tell you that you can't do it. In…

Gertrude B. Elion

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The last act in the biography of the hero is that of the death or departure.

Joseph Campbell

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If I were entering adulthood now instead of in the environment of fifty years ago, I would choose a career that kept me in…

Charles Lindbergh

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I have my own biography of Gram Parsons - I don't want to be part of somebody else's.

Emmylou Harris

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Biographies of great, but especially of good men are most instructive and useful as helps, guides, and incentives to others. Some of the best…

Samuel Smiles

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All Philosophy is Biography

Peter J. Carroll

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Life is a biography, not a series of disconnected moments, more or less pleasurable but increasingly tedious and unsatisfying unless one imposes a purposive…

Theodore Dalrymple

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I hope any poem I've ever written could stand on its own and not need to be a part of biography, critical theory or…

Albert Goldbarth

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The richly cadenced prose is hypnotic, the research prodigious, the analysis acute, the mood spellbinding, and the cast of characters mythic in scale. I…

Ron Chernow