Billy Wilder Quotes

I don't go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons.

My English is a mixture between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Archbishop Tutu.

I'd worship the ground you walked on if only you walked in a better neighborhood.

Well, nobody's perfect.

It was a hot afternoon and I can still remember the smell of honeysuckle all along the street. How can I have known that murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle?

Hollywood didn't kill Marilyn Monroe, it's the Marilyn Monroes who are killing Hollywood.

One's too many and a hundred's not enough.

I just made pictures I would've liked to see.

Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.

On Ernst Lubitsch: He could do more with a closed door than other directors could do with an open fly.

My Aunt Minnie would always be punctual and never hold up production, but who would pay to see my Aunt Minnie?

The ultimate trick is to convince, persuade. Every single person out there is an idiot, but collectively they're a genius.

An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation.

If something smells bad, why put your nose in it?

Shoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award.

Develop a clean line of action for your leading character

Don't be too clever for an audience. Make it obvious. Make the subtleties obvious also.

Money makes even bastards legitimate.

We are on the track of something absolutely mediocre.

God save me from myself.

I just always think, 'Do I like it?' And if I like it, maybe other people will come and like it too.

France is a place where the money falls apart in your hands but you can't tear the toilet paper.

The best director is the one you don't see.

Make subtlety obvious.

The only pictures worth making are the ones that are playing with fire.

The Austrians are brilliant people. They made the world believe that Hitler was a German and Beethoven an Austrian.

The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.

I met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my life, but you - you're twenty minutes.

You're as good as the best thing you've ever done.

A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.

I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut.

If you don't like what you're doing, it's unlikely anyone else will either, so be sure you are happy with your own work first.

If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.

If there's anything I hate more than not being taken seriously, it's being taken too seriously.

You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning.

If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you.

Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's.