Quotes by Screenwriters - Page 134

Writing is beautiful, like putting on a gold suit and going to sleep in it.
Mark Leidner
THAT'S WHAT POWERFUL MEN DO TO THIS COUNTRY - IT'S A BEAUTIFUL, SEXY, BREATHLESS COUNTRY, AND POWERFUL MEN USE IT TO TREAT THEMSELVES TO A THRILL! THEY SAY THEY LOVE IT BUT THEY DON'T MEAN IT. THEY SAY THINGS TO MAKE THEMSELVES APPEAR GOOD - THEY MAKE THEMSELVES APPEAR MORAL...THE COUNTRY WANTS A SAVIOUR. THE COUNTRY IS A SUCKER FOR POWERFUL MEN WHO LOOK GOOD. WE THINK THEY'RE MORALISTS AND THEN THEY JUST USE US.
John Irving
Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when if feels like all you're managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.
Stephen King
In time, the hurt began to fade and it was easier to just let it go. At least I thought it was. But in every boy I met in the next few years, I found myself looking for you, and when the feelings got too strong, I'd write you another letter. But I never sent them for fear of what I might find. By then, you'd gone on with your life and I didn't want to think about you loving someone else. I wanted to remember us like we were that summer. I didn't ever want to lose that.
Nicholas Sparks
Sorrow is how we learn to love. Your heart isn't breaking. It hurts because it's getting larger. The larger it gets, the more love it holds.
Rita Mae Brown
That's the thing about being a victim; you start to think it'll happen to you on a regular basis. It's living with the reality of your own vulnerability, and it sucks.
Dennis Lehane
Once you start living together and you see the same person day in and day out, you begin to wonder: was it for this I struggled and toiled? Did he feel that way?
Sachin Kundalkar
And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have. Good and bad... Maybe it's good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think the only perspective is to really be there. Like Sam said. Because it's okay to feel things. And be who you are about them.
Stephen Chbosky
And Death spoke to them —’”“Sorry,” interjected Harry, “but Death spoke to them?”“It’s a fairy tale, Harry!”“Right, sorry. Go on.
J.K. Rowling
But the pistol, this Walther...it was as if it had been made for the express purpose of shooting people. With a chill Richie realized that was why it had been made. What else could you do with a pistol? Use it to light your cigarettes?
Stephen King
25 And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying 'Where is the flaming sword that was given unto thee?'26 And the Angel said, 'I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down some where, forget my own head next.'27 And the Lord did not ask him again.
Neil Gaiman
We pimp our precious lives to the infernal gnashing babble - Follow me! Friend me! Like me! But don't ever know me.
Patrick Marber
To hurt is as human as to breathe.
J.K. Rowling
Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild.
Stephen King
Noblest. Bravest. What rot. There was no bravery in buying oneself out of difficulty.
Peter David
There either is or is not, that’s the way things are. The colour of the day. The way it felt to be a child. The saltwater on your sunburnt legs. Sometimes the water is yellow, sometimes it’s red. But what colour it may be in memory, depends on the day. I’m not going to tell you the story the way it happened. I’m going to tell it the way I remember it.— Great Expectations (1998) directed by Alfonso Cuarón
Mitch Glazer
Soon enough his head would be swimming with tales of derring-do and high adventure, tales of beautiful maidens kissed, of evildoers shot with pistols or fought with swords, of bags of gold, of diamonds as big as the tip of your thumb, of lost cities and of vast mountains, of steam-trains and clipper ships, of pampas, oceans, deserts, tundra.
Neil Gaiman
When I was in school I studied biology. I learned that in making their experiments scientists will take some group--bacteria, mice, people--and subject that group to certain conditions. They compare the results with a second group which has not been disturbed. This second group is called the control group. It is the control group which enables the scientist gauge the effect of his experiment. To judge the significance of what has occurred. In history there are no control groups. There is no one to tell us what might have been. We weep over the might have been, but there is no might have been. There never was. It is supposed to be true that those who o not know history are condemned to repeat it. I don't believe knowing can save us. What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and a love of blood and this is a thing that even God--who knows all that can be known--seems powerless to change.
Cormac McCarthy
What he was scared of was not that maybe she was a creature who survived by drinking other people's blood. No, it was that she might push him away.
John Ajvide Lindqvist
When you’retwenty-one, life is a roadmap.It’s only when you get to betwenty-five or so that youbegin to suspect you’ve beenlooking at the map upsidedown, and not until you’reforty are you entirely sure.
Stephen King
There is such a thing as too much couth.
S.J. Perelman
All of our days are numbered; we cannot afford to be idle. To act on a bad idea is better than to not act at all because the worth of the idea never becomes apparent until you do it. Sometimes this idea can be the smallest thing in the world, a little flame that you hunch over and cup with your hand and pray will not be extinguished by all the storm that howls about it. If you can hold on to that flame great things can be constructed around it that are massive and powerful and world changing – all held up by the tinniest of ideas.
Nick Cave
She'd always despised the whole other woman thing, but here she was, entertaining the possibility.
Diana Stevan
So in that sense, I and my fellow horror writers are absorbing and defusing all your fears and anxieties and insecurities and taking them upon ourselves. We’re sitting in the darkness beyond the flickering warmth of your fire, cackling into our caldrons and spitting out spider webs of words, all the time sucking the sickness from your minds and spewing it out into the night.
Stephen King
Souls are more important than stories, yes. But stories are a window to the soul. Without stories, the soul suffocates.
Christy Hall
I don't care so much about what you can stand or what you can manage as I do about what you like and want to have. Those are the kinds of things I want to give you, because I'm crazy about you.
Stephen King
Is she dead?" called Zenda.Sort of," I shouted, "And the pizza's completely fucked too.
Michael Marshall Smith
By four o'clock, I've discounted suicide in favor of killing everyone else in the entire world instead.
Warren Ellis
He gave everything to everybody. Except to me.
J.K. Rowling
Whedon: Studios will tell you: A woman cannot headline an action movie. After The Hunger Games they might stop telling you that a little bit. Whatever you think of the movie, it’s done a great service. And after The Avengers, I think it’s changing.Johansson: A lot of the female superhero movies just suck really badly.Whedon: The suck factor is not small.Johansson: They are really not well made, and already you’re fighting against the tide. There are a couple [female-driven action movies] that have worked-ish, don’t you think?Hemsworth: Angelina Jolie tends to do it pretty well, as the dominant female.Jackson: They got to get The Pro to the screen!Whedon: [Groaning] See, that is the problem. Sam is the problem!Jackson: I love that book!Whedon: [Reluctantly] The Pro is hilarious.Jackson: The Pro’s hilarious. [To the group] You ever see or hear of it?Johansson: No, what’s The Pro?Jackson: It’s [a comic book] about a hooker who gets super powers!Johansson: [Pauses] That is exactly the problem right there.Whedon: That’s why I wasn’t going to bring up The Pro!(From an Entertainment Weekly interview)
Joss Whedon
I should say we’d reach England by Tuesday or thereabouts, with a decent wind behind us. It would be a lot quicker than that if we could just sail straight there, but I was looking at the nautical charts, and there’s a dirty great sea serpent right in the middle of the ocean! It has a horrible gaping maw and one of those scaly tails that looks like it could snap a boat clean in two. So I thought it best to sail around that.’FitzRoy frowned. ‘I think they just draw those on maps to add a bit of decoration. It doesn’t actually mean there’s a sea serpent there.’The galley went rather quiet. A few of the pirate crew stared intently out of the portholes, embarrassed at their Captain’s mistake. But to everyone’s relief, instead of running somebody through, the Pirate Captain just narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.That explains a lot,’ he said. ‘I suppose it’s also why we’ve never glimpsed that giant compass in the corner of the Atlantic. I have to say, I’m a little disappointed.
Gideon Defoe
Listen to me. Forget all you saw. Leave it. Take your mind from it. It has nothing to do with you. But use it for experience. Now you know what hurt it brings to women when men come into the world. Remember, and make it up to your Mama and to all women...And another thing let it do. There is no room for pride in any man. There is no room for unkindness. There is not room for wit at the expense of others. All men are born the same, and equal. As you saw today, so come Captains and the Kings and the Tinkers and the Tailors. Let the memory direct your dealings with men and women. And be sure to take good care of Mama. Is it?
Richard Llewellyn
You're in the story with the rest of us now, and you must go with it, whether you will or no.
Peter S Beagle
I feel wonderful and sad. It's the gin.
Stephen Beresford
These eggs are broken. Cracked.""Yes, ma'am. That happens sometimes.""Does it?""Yes, it's the unfortunate part of being an egg.
Peter Hedges
What could he be thinking of? He seemed to be trying to remember something, perhaps an engagement, perhaps an excuse to leave her. For eventually, they all made some excuse.
Brian Moore
Now if you are told that some piece of information will come as a shock to you, the chances are that you will really feel shocked, even if the information itself isn't of the slightest importance.
Walter R. Brooks
Our honor means no more than our lives, so long as the realm is safe.
George R.R. Martin
I'm wondering what to read next." Matilda said. "I've finished all the children's books.
Roald Dahl
It is said with truth that every building is constructed stone by stone, and the same may be said of knowledge, extracted and compiled by many learned men, each of whom builds upon the works of those who proceeded him.
George R.R. Martin
Strange, isn't it,' mused Glokta as he watched him struggle for air. 'Big men, small men, thin men, fat men, clever men, stupid men, they all respond the same to a fist in the guts. One minute you think you're the most powerful man in the world. The next you can't even breathe by yourself.
Joe Abercrombie
Max would conclude, "that's who I want to be. The pope. And I'll do the same thing he does. I'll keep all the goddamn money.
Richard Russo
Bang bang bang. I understand now why so many horror movies use that device-the mysterious knock on the door-because it has the weight of a nightmare. You don't know what's out there, yet you know you'll open it. You'll think what I think: No one bad ever knocks.
Gillian Flynn
It wasn't that long, and it certainly wasn't the kind of kiss you see in movies these days, but it was wonderful in its own way, and all I can remember about the moment is that when our lips touched, I knew the memory would last forever.
Nicholas Sparks
In the new style, homosexuals and heterosexuals could be equally unhappy, equally happy, and equally screwed up.
Christopher Bram
I think maybe, when I was very young, I witnessed a chaste cheek kiss between the two when it was impossible to avoid. Christmas, birthdays. Dry lips. On their best married days, their communications were entirely transactional: 'We're out of milk again.' (I'll get some today.) 'I need this ironed properly.' (I'll do that today.) 'How hard is it to buy milk?' (Silence.) 'You forgot to call the plumber.' (Sigh.) 'Goddammit, put on your coat, right now, and go out and get some goddamn milk. Now.' These messages and orders brought to you by my father, a mid-level phonecompany manager who treated my mother at best like an incompetent employee.
Gillian Flynn
Deus ex machina not only erases all meaning and emotion, it's an insult to the audience. Each of us knows we must choose and act, for better or worse, to determine the meaning of our lives...Deus ex machina is an insult because it is a lie.
Robert McKee
‎If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot…reading is the creative center of a writer’s life…you cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.
Stephen King
Sometimes I believe that love dies but hope springs eternal. Sometimes I believe that hope dies but love springs eternal. Sometimes I believe that sex plus guilt equals love, and sometimes I believe that sex plus guilt equals good sex. Sometimes I believe that love is as natural as the tides, and sometimes I believe that love is an act of will. Sometimes I believe that some people are better at love than others, and sometimes I believe that everyone is faking it. Sometimes I believe that love is essential, and sometimes I believe that only reason love is essential is that otherwise you spend all your time looking for it.
Nora Ephron
Or maybe watching you enjoy a carefree summer while you fell in love was what kept me out of the hospital in the first place.
Nicholas Sparks
If this book has made any point clear, I hope it's that things don't have to be real to be true. Or vice versa.
Grant Morrison
Cara: *Flies*Gen: What? I don't have wings!Cara: Ofcourse not! You're a boy.
Jim Henson
How confusing to live in the shadow of a shadow.
Gillian Flynn
The woman who preaches has poison religion. Let the respectable ones go
Stephen King
If there was one thing that made Captain Lord Jack Blackthorn smile more than holding a pretty woman in his arms, it was a winning hand at cards. To his dismay at the moment he had neither.
Jina Bacarr
Brandon, until this very moment, the world and the people in it have always been dark and incomprehensible to me, and I've tried to clear my way with logic and superior intellect, and you've thrown by own words right back in my face; you've given my words a meaning that I never dreamed of, and you tried to twist them into a cold logical excuse for your ugly murder!Tonight you've made me ashamed of every concept I've ever had, of superior or inferior beings, but I thank you for that shame, because now I know that we're each of us a separate human being, Brandon, with the right to live and work and think as individuals, but with an obligation to the society that we live in. By what right do you dare say that there's a superior few to which you belong? By what right did you dare decide that that boy in there [he's referencing the dead body of "David," lying in a trunk in the middle of the room] was inferior and therefore could be killed?Did you think you were God Brandon? Is that what you thought when you choked the life out of him? Is that what you thought when you served food from his grave! I don't know what you thought or what you are, but I know what you've done—YOU'VE MURDERED! You've strangled the life of a fellow human being who could live and love as you never could... and never will again!
Arthur Laurents
The exhilaration was hard to explain. It was a lonely feeling — a somehow melancholy feeling. He was outside; he passed on the wings of the wind, and none of the people beyond the brightly lighted squares of their windows saw him. They were inside, inside where there was light and warmth. They didn't know he had passed them; only he knew. It was a secret thing.
Stephen King
Comfort is beauty muted by heroin. Sadness is beauty drained by lack of it.
Luke Davies
A check girl in peach-bloom Chinese pajamas came over to take my hat and disapprove of my clothes. She had eyes like strange sins.
Raymond Chandler
Dream anything hard enough, and it can be yours.
George R.R. Martin