Famous quotes by Screenwriters

Screenwriters shape stories from the blank page, transforming ideas into scenes, voices, and moments that linger. Their words about craft, collaboration, and perseverance offer a window into the discipline behind memorable films and series. From the spark of a premise to the grind of rewriting, they speak to the balance of structure and spontaneity, character and dialogue, art and commerce. Explore perspectives that illuminate the creative journey, celebrate hard-won lessons, and invite fresh ways of thinking about narrative, imagination, and the power of well-chosen words.

"You are what you love. Not what loves you"

Charlie Kaufman, Screenwriter

"Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating"

Charlie Kaufman, Screenwriter

"It is a wise man who knows where courage ends and stupidity begins"

Jerome Cady, Screenwriter

"So when I write characters and situations and relationships, I try to sort of utilize what I know about the world, limited as it is, and what I hear from my friends and see with my relatives"

Charlie Kaufman, Screenwriter

"Some smart man once said that on the most exalted throne in the world, we are seated on nothing but our own arse"

Wendell Mayes, Screenwriter

"We all know the Navy is never wrong, but in this case it was a little weak on being right"

Wendell Mayes, Screenwriter

"There's nothing more irresistible to a man than a woman who's in love with him"

Ernest Lehman, Screenwriter

"After all, the wool of a black sheep is just as warm"

Ernest Lehman, Screenwriter

"The Japanese say, if the flower is to be beautiful, it must be cultivated"

Lester Cole, Screenwriter

"Forgive your enemies, but first get even"

Lester Cole, Screenwriter

"You can be a good neighbor only if you have good neighbors"

Howard Koch, Screenwriter

"A benevolent mind, and the face assumes the patterns of benevolence. An evil mind, then an evil face"

Jimmy Sangster, Screenwriter

"When you're dealing with monkeys, you've got to expect some wrenches"

Alvah Bessie, Screenwriter

"Fear is the highest fence"

Dudley Nichols, Screenwriter

"I was trying to figure out what a memory feels like"

Charlie Kaufman, Screenwriter

"I'm not a celebrity. I'm intentionally and defiantly not a celebrity. I don't have any interest in it. I don't have any talent for it. I keep my personal life out of my public life as cleanly as I can"

Charlie Kaufman, Screenwriter

"It's fear of being afraid that frightens me more than anything else"

Jerome Cady, Screenwriter

"Fear has nothing to do with cowardice. A fellow is only yellow when he lets his fear make him quit"

Jerome Cady, Screenwriter

"The Japanese do not fear God. They only fear bombs"

Jerome Cady, Screenwriter

"Indecision is a virus that can run through an army and destroy its will to win or even to survive"

Wendell Mayes, Screenwriter

"The weaker the country, the stronger the smile"

Howard Koch, Screenwriter

"Uneasy lies the head that craves the crown"

Howard Koch, Screenwriter

"You can make children believe whatever you want, and the children of today are the soldiers and mothers of tomorrow"

Dudley Nichols, Screenwriter

"One can spend too much of one's life locked in stuffy rooms seeking out obscure truths, searching, researching, until one is too old to enjoy life"

Jimmy Sangster, Screenwriter

"We've restored life where life was extinct. It's no longer sufficient to bring the dead back to life. We must create from the beginning, we must build up our own creature, build it up from nothing"

Jimmy Sangster, Screenwriter

"You might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb"

Howard Koch, Screenwriter

"If a nation wants to live in peace with its neighbors, it doesn't keep rattling the saber at them"

Howard Koch, Screenwriter

"If it's December 1941 in Casablanca, what time is it in New York?"

Howard Koch, Screenwriter

"Maybe! Maybe! Maybe, if your aunt had a beard, she'd be your uncle"

Alvah Bessie, Screenwriter

"So, my sweetheart back home writes to me and wants to know what this gal in Bombay's got that she hasn't got. So I just write back to her and says, Nothin', honey. Only she's got it here"

Alvah Bessie, Screenwriter

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