Quotes by Screenwriters - Page 164

Do research. Feed your talent. Research not only wins the war on cliche, it's the key to victory over fear and it's cousin, depression.
Robert McKee
God is fucking stealing souls again!
Stephen Adly Guirgis
Wars have a way reinventing people. And making too many things disappear.-Sonia
Neal Shusterman
The liars among us will know that every lie must contain a certain amount of truth if it's to be convincing. A dash of truth is often enough, but it's indispensable, like the olive in the martini.
Sascha Arango
I may not hate all of the people all of the time, but I hate all of them some of the time, and I hate some of them all of the time.
Kathy McCullough
They’re both bungholes who think they’re too noble to shit,
George R.R. Martin
We fool ourselvesinto thinkingwe’re strongthen complainthe rest of our livescrippled bythe consequences.
Barry Gifford
Sometimes command means letting those under you do their job
Kirsten Beyer
A talent for drama is not a talent for writing but is an ability to articulate human relationships.
Gore Vidal
In just a few weeks, Soldier 13 became aware of a mutation in the colors of his consciousness. As the theoretical classes were filling his brain with philosophical, historical, and political arguments to make his faith unbreakable, the sessions with the psychologists were draining his mind of the deadweight of experiences, memories, fears, and illusions forged of the course of a life of a past that he detached himself from as if they were skinning him. He was overwhelmed to see how his personal history was becoming a foggy haze and how even recent events, like Kotov's last recommendations before he returned to Spain, seemed to diffuse that he sometimes asked himself if he hadn't lived them in another remote and murky existence.During those months was when Ramon really began to stop being Ramon and only became him against when the man they were turning him into was suffocating and, to save him, the former Ramon Mercader had to come to the surface. Or whenever they ordered him to go out and get some sun. But he was never again the same Ramon Mercader del Rio.p. 208
Leonardo Padura
Can you taste it Bruce? Can you taste the filth, the dirt, the oily blackness of that fossil fuel in our mouth as you choke and gag and spit it out? Do you still hear his voice in your head urging you to eat? Eat, eat eat. Your mother's cries. Do you hear them? You should be Bruce. Because I know that it's never left you alone. Now you can eat what you want to eat. For me, for you, for all the others. Now you can consume to your heart's content or your soul's destruction, whichever comes first. So eat.
Irvine Welsh
Disbelief is easy, Kane. It’s faith that takes courage, and character.
Michael Marshall Smith
As for the fact that Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle apeared to be going their different ways when they were usually inseparable, these things happened as people got older--Ron and Hermione, Harry reflected sadly, were living proof.
J.K. Rowling
What if there were no grownups? Suppose the whole idea of grownups was an illusion? What if their money was really just play-ground marbles, their business deals no more than baseball-card trades, their wars only games of guns in the park? What if they were all still snotty-nosed kids inside their suits and dresses? Christ, that couldn't be, could it? It was too horrible to think about.
Stephen King
I'll tell you the only real truth. Cunt is where it all begins and where it all ends. Cunt is the only thing worth living for. Everything else is a fake, a fraud and just shit.
Mario Puzo
I was tempted to tell her it was because we were British and actually had a sense of humour, but I try not to be cruel to foreigners, especially when they're that strung out.
Ben Aaronovitch
Science Fiction is a safe, fertile arena in which to rehearse the potential scientific facts of tomorrow
Stewart Stafford
They both seemed to understand that describing it was beyond their powers, the gratitude that spreads through your body when a burden gets lifted, and the sense of homecoming that follows, when you suddenly remember what it feels like to be yourself.
Tom Perrotta
DEATH: "Mostly they aren't too keen to see me. They fear the sunless lands. But they enter your realm each night without fear."MORPHEUS: "And I am far more terrible than you, sister.
Neil Gaiman
They all think medicine should be magic, and they become mad at me when it's not.
Neal Shusterman
I am a guy," I say."And I hate boys," she says."But a guy's different," I say."Maybe a little," she says.
Ned Vizzini
This was supposed to be yesterday. I was sitting on the Cardiff/London train, supposedly about to write this very column, and realising something quite terrible. My head was entirely empty. A vast echoing void. Bigger on the inside, but with nothing in it. You could drop a pebble in my brain and wait for an hour to hear it land. No actually, you couldn't - that would be aggressive and unhelpful, so keep your damn pebbles to yourself.
Steven Moffat
We've had our ups and downs since then, but that's what families have, ups and downs.
Neil Gaiman
When I look back now, I realize what a trial I must have been to my friends and relatives. It was one frenzy after one elation after one enthusiasm after one hysteria after another. I was always yelling and running somewhere, because I was afraid life was going to be over that very afternoon.
Ray Bradbury
I'm not going anywhere!" said Harry fiercely. "One of my best friends is Muggle-born; she'll be first in line if the Chamber really has been opened...
J.K. Rowling
Yes. She’s correct. We’re not friends. We are lufenes actually. But she’s had an overdose of magic, which has seemingly rendered her empathetically impotent.
Jessica O'Toole
I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don't even ripple.
Gillian Flynn
If you simply ignored the feeling, you would never know what might happen, and in many ways that was worse than finding out in the first place. Because if you were wrong, you could go forward in your life without ever looking back over your shoulder and wondering what might have been.
Nicholas Sparks
The world is a sewer of lies. We’re all up to our necks in the sweet shit of it.
Benjamin Percy
Secure tomorrow today by sowing good seeds today and by watering them with faith and love to others.
Enock Maregesi
The old sleep poorly. Perhaps they stand watch.
Stephen King
Computers: he always fixed on computers when his mind wandered into the future--instruments he revered and hated. The computer world was a place where snotty kids knew everything and nothing.... The computer was part of a future cloudy, unpredictable and menacing.
Howard Fast
An ugly smile. An ugly soul.
George R.R. Martin
Why won't they let me be? I just need to rest, that's all, to rest and sleep some, and maybe die a little.
George R.R. Martin
... why I like timetables, because they make sure I don't get lost in time.
Mark Haddon
Cultivate your curves - they may be dangerous but they won't be avoided.
Mae West
Shonda, how do you do it all?The answer is this: I don't.Whenever you see me somewhere succeeding in one area of my life, that almost certainly means I am failing in another area of my life....That is the trade-off.That is the Faustian bargain one makes with the devil that comes with being a powerful working woman who is also a powerful mother. You never feel 100 percent okay, you never get your sea legs, you are always a little nauseous.
Shonda Rhimes
But I was also told to hold doors for women and children, to shake hands with a firm grip, to remember people's names, and to always give the customer a little more than expected.
Nicholas Sparks
There are two kinds of truth: the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The first of these is science, and the second is art. Neither is independent of the other or more important than the other. Without art science would be as useless as a pair of high forceps in the hands of a plumber. Without science art would become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery. The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridicu
Raymond Chandler
Writing is the thing that props me up.
Horton Foote
Look, why don't you go talk to Ron about all this?" Harry asked."Well, I would, but he's always asleep when I go and see him!" said Lavender fretfully."Is he?" said Harry, surprised, for he had found Ron perfectly alert every time he had been up to the hospital wing.
J.K. Rowling
Looking back, I still can't believe how unprofessional the news media was. So much spin, so few hard facts. All those digestible sound bites from an army of 'experts' all contradicting one another, all trying to seem more 'shocking' and 'in-depth' than the last one. It was all so confusing, nobody seemed to know what to do.
Max Brooks
Writers will happen in the best of families.
Rita Mae Brown
It's not what a movie is about, it's how it is about it.
Roger Ebert
Though the gospel amnesty which grace proclaims makes no exceptions, for Divine grace has no limits, there are limits to the time within which the amnesty avails. And if sinners despise grace there is nothing for them but judgment, stern and inexorable.
Robert Anderson
He had never been a social man. He had shunned causes with contempt and disgust. They were for pig-simple suckers and people with too much time and money on their hands
Stephen King
You learn eventually that, while there are no villains, there are no heroes either. And until you make the final discovery that there are only human beings, who are therefore all the more fascinating, you are liable to miss something.
Paul Gallico
I look at words as if they were entities, sacred beings. There are words to which I tip my hat when I see them sitting on a page.
William Luce
And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.
Roald Dahl
Never use five words if you can get away with one, eh? I've known dead men talk more than you do.
Neil Gaiman
Let's look at one more quick example of modern evolution atwork. In the early 1800s, light-colored lichens covered many ofthe trees in the English countryside. The peppered moth was alight-colored insect that blended in unnoticeably with the lichens.Predators had great difficulty distinguishing the peppered mothfrom its background environment, so the moths easily survivedand reproduced. Then the Industrial Revolution came to the English country-side. Coal-burning factories turned the lichens a sooty black. Thelight-colored peppered moth became clearly visible. Most of themwere eaten. But because of genetic variation and mutation, a fewpeppered moths displayed a slightly darker color. These darkermoths were better able to blend in with the sooty lichens, and solived to produce other darker-colored moths. In little over a hun-dred years, successive generations of peppered moths evolvedfrom almost completely white to completely black. Natural selec-tion, rather than "random accident," guided the moth's evolution-ary progress.
David Mills
Maybe honor was in its twilight. Maybe it had always been heading that way. Or worse, maybe it had always been an illusion.
Dennis Lehane
The ugliest thing in the world is a beautiful woman without the brains or courage to know that [beauty] is nothing more than an accident.
Charlie Fletcher
It may not feel too classy, begging just to eat But you know who does that?Lassie, and she always gets a treat So you wonder what your part is Because you're homeless and depressed But home is where the heart is So your real home's in your chest Everyone's a hero in their own way Everyone's got villains they must face They're not as cool as mine But folks you know it's fine to know your place Everyone's a hero in their own way In their own not-that-heroic way So I thank my girlfriend Penny Yeah, we totally had sex She showed me there's so many different muscles I can flex There's the deltoids of compassion, There's the abs of being kind It's not enough to bash in headsYou've got to bash in minds Everyone's a hero in their own way Everyone's got something they can do Get up go out and fly Especially that guy, he smells like poo Everyone's a hero in their own way You and you and mostly me and you I'm poverty's new sheriff And I'm bashing in the slums A hero doesn't care if you're a bunch of scary alcoholic bums Everybody! Everyone's a hero in their own way Everyone can blaze a hero's trail Don't worry if it's hard If you're not a friggin 'tard you will prevail Everyone's a hero in their own way Everyone's a hero in their...
Joss Whedon
Something bad was about to happen. My wife was being clever again.
Gillian Flynn
There are two ways of spreading light to be candle,or the mirror that reflects it.
Chetan Bhagat
John: I'm experiencing an odd sensation. I think it might be patriotism.Spitfire: Steady. Too much of that can damage your health.
Paul Cornell
Humor keeps us alive. Humor and food. Don't forget food. You can go a week without laughing.
Joss Whedon
I love you.''Yeah, well...''You make my heart want to beat.''That's nice and creepy. But I'm with Fletcher.(...) Also, these proclamations of your undying love for me are getting kind of... it's a bit much to be honest. Just hold back a little.''But my love for you is eternal.''That's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about.
Derek Landy
All that night he thought like boomerangs fly: an idea would shoot way off into the distance, all the way to a caravan in Hollywood and, for a moment, when he had got as far away from school and reality as it was possible to go, he was reasonably happy; then it would begin the return journey, thump him on the head, and leave him in exactly the place he had started from. And all the time it got nearer and nearer to the morning.
Nick Hornby