Quotes by Screenwriters - Page 53

I doubt I'm any wiser than I was five hundred years back. I'm older. I've been up, and been down, and been up again. Have I learned aught? I've learned from my mistakes, but I've had more time to commit more mistakes.
Neil Gaiman
You can make a lot of mistakes in just one lifetime. (I'll Be Waiting)
Raymond Chandler
Did I do and say these things? Yes, I did. Are there any mitigating circumstances? Not really, unless any circumstances {in other words, context) can be regarded as mitigating. And before you judge, although you have probably already done so, go away and write down the four worst things you have done to a partner, even if - especially if - your partner doesn't know about them. Don't dress things up, or try to explain them; just write them down, in a list, in the plainest language possible. Finished? Ok, so who's the arsehole now?
Nick Hornby
Sometimes the only way to fix a mistake- is to make it twice.
Julianna Baggott
Wherever I am, if I've got a book with me, I have a place I can go and be happy.
J.K. Rowling
And then you got us. Yeah, we stopped the zombie menace, but we're the ones who let it become a menace in the first place. At least we're cleaning up our own mess, and maybe that's the best epitaph to hope for. "Generation Z, they cleaned up their own mess.
Max Brooks
I know that things get worse before they get better because that's what my psychiatrist says, but this is a worse that feels too big.
Stephen Chbosky
His existence had always been comfortable, he had always held a clear picture of himself, his duties, and his place in a world. He saw that world as a place so full of turning gears he had no hope of comprehending how things fit together, so why even try?Now things were different, however. Now he wasn’t just looking out from inside of the clockwork. Instead, he was actually seeing the final motion of the escapement—the ticking hands of the clock itself.And it was a doomsday clock.Both his feline and human instincts told him to let it be. It was not his problem, or his place to interfere. If the living world was destined to fall, let it happen, let it pass into history once and for all. Who was he to try to save it?But on the other hand, if the living world were lost, then there would never again be great cats to furjack . . . and couldn’t it be that hearing the actual ticking of the clock gave one the responsibility to stop it?
Neal Shusterman
You can't blame anyone else, ... , no one but yourself. You have to make your own choices and live every agonizing day with the consequences of those choices.
Max Brooks
It's hard enough for a person to keep their own socks pulled up, let alone someone else's.
Stephen King
We live in a world that has walls and those walls need to be guarded by men with guns.
Aaron Sorkin
I feel I owe you another explanation Harry," said Dumbledore hesitantly. "You may, perhaps, wondered why I never chose you as a prefect? I must confess...that I rather thought...you had enough responsibility to be going on with."Harry looked up at him and saw a tear trickling down Dumbledore's face into his long silver beard.
J.K. Rowling
But show business has always been like that - any kind of show business. If these people didn't live intense and rather disordered lives, if their emotions didn't ride them too hard—well, they wouldn't be able to catch those emotions in flight and imprint them on a few feet of celluloid or project them across the footlights.
Raymond Chandler
The last vestiges of consciousness tell her she has just witnessed her own murder, all she ever was and hoped to be is gone.
Terry Hayes
This has been a covert preparation for an overt operation." - Rory in NEVER GO ALONE
Denison Hatch
When Carri died, I felt like I had lost everything, except my life, and my memories of her. Now I can’t even dream of her...
Richard Finney
Look at me closely. Ask yourself: Do I look scared?
Gregg Hurwitz
but true love goes far deeper than that. It is an unexplainable connection of the heart, one that endures triumph and tragedy, pain and suffering, obstacles and loss. It is something that is either present or missing - there is no "almost", "in between", "most of the time." It is the unexplainable reason that some marriages entered into after one-week courtships can last a lifetime. Its absence is why "perfect" marriages fall apart. It can't be quantified or explained in science, religion, or philosophy. It can't be advised on by friends or marriage counselors who can't take their own advice. There are no rules, no how-to books, no guaranteed methods of success. It is not defined by vows or rings or promises of tomorrow. It is simply a miracle of God, that too few are blessed to experience.
Richard Doetsch
I believe that on any trip to heaven, there are always detours through hell.
Richard Finney
Oh God,” Jenna said, “will you shut up and kiss me before I change my mind?
Richard Finney
Young girls and mass murders are tender hearted creatures
Pierre Lemaitre
Judge: But why would that make it possible for you to fool Monsieur Gallimard? Please--get to the point.Song: One, because when he finally met his fantasy woman, he wanted more than anything to believe that she was, in fact, a woman. And second, I am an Oriental. And being an Oriental, I could never be completely a man.
David Henry Hwang
Ah sortay jist laugh whin some cats say that racism's an English thing and we're aw Jock Tamson's bairn up here . . . it's likesay pure shite man, gadges talkin through their erses.
Irvine Welsh
Mrs. Cole was a perfect democrat. She hated all kids equally.
Stephen King
If at the end of the day the people of our city escape, it will be good.But if somehow our democracy remains standing - it will be even better.
Boaz Yakin
The US exports democracy, hence there being very little left for Americans
Dean Cavanagh
As life speeds up & the political becomes ever more personal democracy continues to foster change as fast as the movement of tectonic plates
Dean Cavanagh
It's an election year. We would prefer that voters didn't use common sense.
Aaron Sorkin
The problem with the politicians of both parties in the US is that neither of them have a real agenda except to feather their own nests. They both have their hands deep in corporate pockets. All the rest is sleight of hand and distraction to keep the public occupied with trivia, divided against each other, and thinking their vote matters.
Michael Hogan
A democracy is not truly democratic unless it's secular.
Shawn Lawrence Otto
You’re a raptor who sees all his people as defenseless little flit-wrens—and you’ll save them, if only they give up the fanciful notion that they can lead themselves, that they can protect themselves.” “You understand nothing.” “Meanwhile,” Sinjir says, really leaning into it now, “your opponent is a woman who wants to give democracy to the entirety of the galaxy. Freedom for all. Oppression for none.” “It’s naïve.” “It may be. But at this point, I’m going to side with her precious naïveté over your authoritarian bluster.
Chuck Wendig
Had I realized while on Earth," he said, "that Hell was such a delightful place, I should have put more faith in the teachings of religion. As it was, I actually doubted its existence. A foolish error, cherie. I am pleased to say that you have converted me completely.""I, too," observed Mr. Hamilton, helping himself to wine, "was something of an unbeliever in my time, and while never quite an atheist, like my arch-enemy Jefferson, I was still inclined to look upon Satan as merely a myth. Imagine my satisfaction to find him ruling a monarchy! You know I spent the greater part of my earthly existence fighting Mr. Jefferson and his absurd democratic ideas and now look at the damn country! Run by morons!
Frederic Arnold Kummer Jr.
It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting.
Tom Stoppard
Oh God, the terrible tyranny of the majority. We all have our harps to play. And it's up to you to know with which ear you'll listen.
Ray Bradbury
The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return.
Gore Vidal
Is this a kissing book?
William Goldman
Storytellers think they're writing for the audience. They're writing, in a way, to hurt the audience.
Chuck Wendig
Start telling the stories that only you can tell. Because there will always be better writers than you, and there will always be smarter writers than you, and there will always be, you know, people who are much better at doing this or doing that, but you are the only you.
Neil Gaiman
One of the things that I have learned, one of the attainments of the long travails and tribulations, has been, I think, coming to a simpler sense of myself that I think correlates to a simpler sense of others. Something closer to what I now call the simple sense of being human, a sort of Wallace Stevens-esque formulation. I know that I can reach this in the audience, because when they start hearing a story, they wake up in this very clear, simple way. Almost like children. It’s the same thing: a child asks, “What’s going to happen next?” When they sense that a story is being told to them, they wake up. When they sense that it’s not being told anymore, they lose interest. I take this very seriously, because the sacred trust that allows openness is the precondition of the kind of exchange I want to have, the kind of relationship that I want to have. I don’t want to test that simple sense of being human. I don’t want to transform it.
Ayad Akhtar
If someone tells you what a story is about, they are probably right.If they tell you that that is all a story is about, they are very definitely wrong.
Neil Gaiman
Everything I do in its essence is about helplessness. That's the story I want to tell all the time. It's the story I wanted to live - somebody who appears to be, or is, weak becoming stronger.
Joss Whedon
Historical exclusivity often has a way of turning into present and institutionalized tragedy. Whose story gets told matters.
Aurin Squire
Margherita Margheritone put the pot of water on the fire and the Wicked Witch emptied the sack into it and the little wash-bear jumped out and started biting both of them, went down into the yard and started eating the hens, and threw all the rubbish into the air.
Niccolò Ammaniti
Quality storytelling inspires quality dialogue.
Robert McKee
(...) a director should tell a story that is close to his own existential experience.
Andrzej Wajda
Sometime reality is too complex. Stories give it form.
Jean-Luc Godard
How does it happen that a writer who's not even very good - and I can say that, I've read four or five of his books - gets to be in charge of the world's destiny? Or of the entire universe's?"If he's not very good, why didn't you stop at one?"Mrs. Tassenbaum smiled. "Touché. He is readable, I'll give him that - tells a good story...
Stephen King
Father may have been wanting in some things, but here he was masterful. Night upon night, I marveled at his power to hold listeners in rapt attention. He could tell a story with such detail, such flourish, that afterwards a man could swear it had been his own memory, and not a tale at all.
Seth Grahame-Smith
The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting.
Stephen King
Look. (Grown-ups skip this paragraph) I'm not about to tell you this book has a tragic ending. I already said in the very first line how it was my favorite in all the world. But there's a lot of bad stuff coming.
William Goldman
Your law always does more harm than crime, and your morality is a form of violence.
Edward Bond
Jokes against the legal profession were what the legal profession loved most.
Ian McEwan
How can you pass laws about things that nobody knows?""They do it all the time," says Hayden. "That's what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong.
Neal Shusterman
I had once repeated the experiment to reassure myself that this was so, and it was. Ashes to ashes; starch to sugar. A little window into the Creation
Alan Bradley
The prosaic fact of the universe's existence alone defeats both the pragmatist and the romantic.
Stephen King
To make the world. To make it again and again. To make it in the very maelstrom of its undoing.
Cormac McCarthy
There (is) order and even great beauty in what looks like total chaos. If we look closely enough at the randomness around us, patterns will start to emerge.
Aaron Sorkin
We make our own monsters, then fear them for what they show us about ourselves.
Mike Carey
It is in our nature to destroy what we create. (Dr. Paul Kramer)
Alex Scarrow
So when it comes to Elvis and Joe, I have to trust my instincts, because they’ve gotten me here. And I have to write what I believe in, what I find moving.
Robert Crais