Billy Wilder Quotes

Billy Wilder was an Austrian-born American film director and screenwriter whose career spanned more than five decades. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of the Hollywood Golden Age of cinema.

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

Film’s thought of as a director’s medium because the director creates the end product that appears on the screen. It’s that stupid auteur theory again, that the director is the author of the film. But what does the director shoot-the telephone book? Writers became much more important when sound came in, but they’ve had to put up a valiant fight to get the credit they deserve.

Topic(s): Important , Doe , Book

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

Topic(s): Directors , Filmmaker , Policemen

They’ve tried to manufacture other Marilyn Monroes and they will undoubtedly keep trying. But it won’t work. She was an original.

Topic(s): Trying , Originals , Keep Trying

Money makes even bastards legitimate.

Topic(s): Money

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

Topic(s): Ifs , Hate , Taken

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

Topic(s): Hands , Fall , Tears

Now, what is it which makes a scene interesting? If you see a man coming through a doorway, it means nothing. If you see him coming through a window – that is at once interesting.

Topic(s): Ifs , Men , Mean

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.

Topic(s): Ifs , Firsts , Unlikely

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?