Screenwriting Quotes

It's a great euphoria when you reach that writing zone. ~ Paul T. Scheuring

Collaborating on a film script involves two people sitting in a room separated by the silence of two minds working together. ~ Darlene Craviotto

If you have someone on the set for the hair, why would you not have someone for the words? ~ Louis Malle

Working at Pixar has been like my graduate school for screenwriting. ~ Michael Arndt

Screenwriting is a terrible way to make a living and I always try to talk anyone out of it. Until you sit in a story meeting with studio executives with no particular ability or actors who haven't even graduated high school telling you exactly how to change your script, you haven't experienced what it's really like to be a screenwriter in Hollywood. Also, unlike novelists and playwrights, you don't own the copyright on your original material. It hurts when you sell a project you love and then suddenly the project you really cared about will never see the light of day. ~ Amy Holden Jones

All tales, then, are at some level a journey into the woods to find the missing part of us, to retrieve it and make ourselves whole. Storytelling is as simple - and complex - as that. That's the pattern. That's how we tell stories. ~ John Yorke

For me, as a writer who comes from quite a naturalistic tradition, British screenwriting is quite delicate, quite small, and rarified in a way. ~ Simon Beaufoy

As Frances Marion rose to accept the Academy Award for Screenwriting for her original story The Big House, she became the first woman writer to win an Oscar. Since 1917, she had been the highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood - male or female - and was hailed as "the all-time best script and story writer the motion picture world has ever produced." Just forty and "as beautiful as the stars she wrote for," Frances was already credited with writing over one hundred produced films. ~ Cari Beauchamp

Everyone has their truth. Mine lies in the cinema. ~ Dawn Garcia

I studied screenwriting at film school and was constantly learning how to construct three-act dramas. ~ Tobias Lindholm

I definitely have the screenwriting itch. ~ Victoria Aveyard

I'm very lucky. I actually like screenwriting. I rarely feel a sense of doom going to my desk. ~ Simon Beaufoy

My screenwriting credits in my career are probably not dissimilar to some other ones in the sense that a lot of the scripts you write don't get made, and the ones that do get made are certainly - as a writer, they're not your vision. ~ Dan Gilroy

One of the worst parts about working in entertainment is that there's so much you're expected to have seen. Oh, you're a screenwriter? You've seen the new Batman, then, right? I'm watching this show on Amazon, right now, and oh my god, it's so good - but I'm sure you've already seen it. The reality is, I'm usually so busy on my own work, I rarely have time to see anything that isn't required for some kind of voting. ~ Jenny Trout

I've always been a writer, I've always been a storyteller, but I never thought about screenwriting. ~ Diablo Cody

Every inch of my writing career has been influenced by my screenwriting education. I was lucky enough to go to film school at USC, and I got a crash course in how to tell a story efficiently. I learned structure, pace, my style, how to know your audience, and most importantly, how to take criticism and edits properly. ~ Victoria Aveyard

I usually write very few stage directions. I think a lot of that is a waste of time. The art of screenwriting is in its terseness, saying a lot with a little. I have no patience when I read a script where the writer describes this guy and what he's wearing and his glasses and his hair. ~ Scott Frank

I didn't write 'Snow White' for any class, but I got bitten by the screenwriting bug and wrote a couple of scripts in my spare time instead of going to keg parties or something. ~ Evan Daugherty

It's a distillation of all I know about writing: short-story writing, screenwriting, journalism - everything. There is no future in the novel, so far as I can see. I'm trying to show where writing is going to be. I may not get there, but I will point the way." In ~ Gerald Clarke

All these teachers and [screenwriting] books mean you see movies that have been worked over by more committees wielding more rules, that all originality and authorship is lost. That's why you're seeing superstars like Brad Pitt in THE FIGHT CLUB and Tom Cruise in MAGNOLIA. They're desperately searching for people writing and directing off-formula movies. ~ Paul Schrader

If the story you're telling, is the story you're telling, you're in deep shit. ~ Robert McKee

Screenwriting you don't necessarily have to do the job of the costume designer and the prop master and the set designer. It's more just about finding the visuals and finding these characters through dialogue. ~ Jonathan Tropper

I think, in a weird way, the reason I was drawn to screenwriting and the reason I really love doing it is because I love writing dialogue. ~ David Benioff

Screenwriting is an opportunity to fly first class, be treated like a celebrity, sit around the pool and be betrayed. ~ Ian McEwan

I definitely divide my life into decades. Almost every ten years, something in my work life has changed. My twenties were my journalistic phase, then there was my screenwriting phase, then I became a director, then I started doing some plays ... ~ Nora Ephron

I came into screenwriting from an odd direction, because the first screenplay that I read was and is better as writing than the top one percent of literary novels. ~ William Monahan

Screenwriting is like poker; in the end, you have to go all in. ~ A.D. Posey

I find that screenwriting is at best kind of a hackwork in some ways. ~ John Milius

If you put someone in a room with no script to direct, they're just going to sit there. Writing scripts is the execution for a show. Then the director takes that and hires people. It's like trying to build a house without any bricks. You need the script. I could build the house, but I have to know how. ~ John Patrick Shanley

I don't think screenwriting is therapeutic. It's actually really, really hard for me. It's not an enjoyable process. ~ Charlie Kaufman

Having spent a lot of time trying to figure out screenwriting, I do feel moved and I want to try to write good roles for women of every age. ~ Brit Marling

Makebelieve is a writer's best friend. ~ Solange Nicole

Screenwriting is not an artform, it is a punishment from God. ~ Fran Lebowitz

As a writer, you're the guy in the box. You're creating and you have these euphorias. ~ Paul T. Scheuring

I've been a novelist since 1995 and have had novels in and out of option, and watching that process just made me realize that I have to live by what I teach my students, because I teach screenwriting at Spellman. ~ Tananarive Due

I learned that you really don't have any control as a writer. Waah, waah, waah. Big deal. Unless you're the director on the movie, or putting up the money for the movie, you really don't have a lot of control. As someone who's just writing scripts, you just kind of have to shrug. I have no problems or issues with screenwriting in general. It is what it is. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

I find playwriting to be incredibly difficult compared to screenwriting. Part of it is that I grew up watching movies and not watching plays. ~ Zoe Kazan

I had always been interested in screenwriting, ever since I could write things down as a child. Obviously, I started as an actor, professionally, but screenwriting was always something that I had a great interest in. ~ John Francis Daley

People don't really want original stories. they want different versions of the same story. this is called meta-narrative. ~ Chester Elijah Branch

Do you want it good or Tuesday? ~ Jimmy Sangster

The whole purpose of screenwriting is to convey everything through action and dialogue and not explanation and exposition. To me, there are movies where voiceover works really well because it does something more than exposition; it actually becomes a tonal element of the movie. ~ Jonathan Tropper

Even with college, the reason I wanted to go so badly is because I wanted to major in film. I want to take screenwriting classes and learn more about behind the scenes stuff, because I love people like Steve Carell and Kristen Wiig who are able to write a lot of their own material and be so involved in everything they do. ~ Miranda Cosgrove

Jenny is what people would call a "big girl." Jenny from screenwriting class. I watch how she lives in her own imperfect skin, recognizing her limitations but still going for what she wants and doing what she loves - writing, smoking, drinking coffee, eating cake, listening to rock 'n' roll, reading Shakespeare, and wearing cute, punky clothes, all despite being a "big girl." It's like she actually believes she has a right to be in this world. ~ Lisa Kotin

I'm first and foremost interested in the story, the characters. ~ David Lean

I discovered John Truby ten years ago when a friend told me about his screenwriting course. I studied Truby's principles for a year and
using them
I wrote the first draft of The Thieves of Ostia in two weeks. I go back to his teachings before each new book I write. Each time I study Truby, I learn something new. ~ Caroline Lawrence

You can't fix a bad script after you start shooting. The problems on the page only get bigger as they move to the big screen. ~ Howard Hawks

Plays are nearly always about the consequences of events while films are usually about the events. The what-happens-next factor is essential in film. ~ Richard Toscan

I don't mind doing scripted material. It's actually kind of a relief, because improvising is a little bit like screenwriting on your feet. ~ John C. Reilly

Screenwriting is a much more collaborative effort. When you write a novel, it's just you, with input from your editor. ~ Meg Cabot

I've come to view screenwriting assignments as playwriting grants, because they provide a considerable financial cushion. However, they can also be extremely time-consuming. Film projects tend to drag on and on, which takes me away from the theatre, and then they don't get made. At the same time, the screenplays that have come my way have been quite challenging, for the most part, and even enjoyable. ~ Donald Margulies

As a screenwriter - if you are completely honest with yourself - you can't help but admit that your greatest threat is the audience, where audience is not understood as a demographic category but as a character outside the script to whom the story is addressed. A good part of the drama necessary for uncovering the story resides in the conflict between the storyteller and his/her audience. Audience plays the part of antagonist to the writer's role as protagonist. The writer drives the action, which is forever complicated, frustrated and undermined by the audience's needs and sensibilities. Audience wants you to prove it. Audience has a chip on its shoulder, and doesn't give a damn. Audience has been there and done that in the guise of your mother, your father, your ex-, your worst enemy. Audience laughs at your stupidity and dares you to change its view of you and the story world that you would have it care about. Audience is defiant. It has your number. The only way you can defeat it is by carrying a bigger stick - your only defence is an inspired offence, namely the story. ~ Billy Marshall Stoneking

There is magic in the old and magic in the new; the trick is to successfully combine the two. ~ A.D. Posey

Storytelling answers questions and solves mysteries. ~ A.D. Posey

If you don't think screenwriting is a work of art, good luck in your life without a soul. ~ A.D. Posey

To paraphrase Muggeridge: Everything is a parable that God is speaking to us, the art of life is to get the message. ~ Chester Elijah Branch

Novelists who get shitty about screenwriting invariably can't do it, or they can't hack it in the world of what's really, in truth, very bold and very public enterprise. ~ William Monahan

Once you see the entertainment world from both sides, you really get a greater understanding of how it all operates. As an actor going into screenwriting, I was able to understand what type of dialogue feels natural and what an actor could actually say. ~ John Francis Daley

There's a story you write, there's a story you shoot and there's a story you cut. ~ Paul T. Scheuring

Outside the cinema I had not yet learned to live, but within it I had most certainly learned to die. I could die for you in every way known to man, and in a few ways known only to scriptwriters. I could see now that provided that I remained fit, the future held many more deaths yet. I could only hope that they would serve some purpose, and that perhaps a reputation may come in the same way as a coral formation, which is made up of a deposit of countless tiny corpses. ~ Christopher Lee

Screenwriting is like ironing. You move forward a little bit and go back and smooth things out. ~ Paul Thomas Anderson

Screenwriting and making movies is really playing make-believe like most of us did as children. ~ Gabriel Campisi

I studied writing at university, and I actually majored in screenwriting. Then I went to work as a bookseller and then as a sales rep and publicist and then various editorial jobs until I ended up with HarperCollins in Australia. ~ Garth Nix

The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure and natural movement. ~ Raymond Chandler

Screenwriting Joe Eszterhas have always talked about the charm of evil. ~ Chris Hayes

Whatever you do in terms of telling a story, the most important thing that you can define is who you are. ~ John Patrick Shanley

In fiction, I have a residual guilt when I focus on story over language or mood or whatever - the more "literary" things. In screenwriting, I don't have that guilt because story is the only thing. Character, dialogue, everything else - they feed into and drive story. ~ Nick Antosca

Screenwriting is still a challenge for me. It's more technical than creative. You have to be a very good journeyman plumber and put the proper parts together. Then, if you can still inject a little bit of something worthwhile, you have done as much as can be expected. ~ Leigh Brackett

There are many self-proclaimed "screenwriting gurus" - though how you get to be a "guru" of something you've never actually done is beyond us. Screenplays are like blueprints. A guy who's drawn up a lot of blueprints that have never actually been made into buildings is not an "architecture guru," he's an "unemployed douchebag." A guy who talks about screen-writing but who's never sold a screenplay is not a "screenwriting guru," he's a "lecture circuit bullshit artist." From now on, that's what we'll call them. ~ Thomas Lennon

Nowadays films and television are what I like to call "Microwave Media". I like mine in the oven, giving the production time to simmer; get the juices flowing, and cooked to perfection. And that takes time. Slow, precious, tempered time. A script is a film's recipe. It's just a piece of paper to the novice cook, but even a recipe needs time to be perfected before it's given to the masses. ~ Solange Nicole

'The Fourth Hand' was a novel that came from twenty years of screenwriting concurrently with whatever novel I'm writing. ~ John Irving

All writing is discipline, but screenwriting is a drill sergeant. ~ Robert McKee

Initially I only decided to try and write a novel because I wasn't getting enough screenwriting work. It wasn't a long-held ambition, and certainly the idea came first. ~ Stef Penney

Fiction and screenwriting blend for me. I feel like being a TV writer/screenwriter has definitely made my fiction writing better, although I have less time to do it. ~ Nick Antosca

I majored in screenwriting and playwriting in school - and wanted to make films as a career. But when I directed my first short in college - which was called 'Extras' - I lost thousands of dollars and made an unsatisfying and incomplete film. ~ Mike Birbiglia

Love is alive when there's music in your heart. ~ A.D. Posey

Peace is when we look upon the world together. ~ A.D. Posey

Her words dance on the page. ~ A.D. Posey

Few literary depictions of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake match the intensity and visceral power of those in Flacco's gripping first novel. The author's screenwriting talent shines in this story of the earth's destructive power and humanity's moral depravity. The emerging maniacal personality, revealed in increasingly gruesome and venomous detail, rivals the Ripper.Dickens meets Hannibal Lecter. Brace yourself. ~ William Bernhardt

When he was in college, a famous poet made a useful distinction for him. He had drunk enough in the poet's company to be compelled to describe to him a poem he was thinking of. It would be a monologue of sorts, the self-contemplation of a student on a summer afternoon who is reading Euphues. The poem itself would be a subtle series of euphuisms, translating the heat, the day, the student's concerns, into symmetrical posies; translating even his contempt and boredom with that famously foolish book into a euphuism.

The poet nodded his big head in a sympathetic, rhythmic way as this was explained to him, then told him that there are two kinds of poems. There is the kind you write; there is the kind you talk about in bars. Both kinds have value and both are poems; but it's fatal to confuse them.

In the Seventh Saint, many years later, it had struck him that the difference between himself and Shakespeare wasn't talent - not especially - but nerve. The capacity not to be frightened by his largest and most potent conceptions, to simply (simply!) sit down and execute them. The dreadful lassitude he felt when something really large and multifarious came suddenly clear to him, something Lear-sized yet sonnet-precise. If only they didn't rush on him whole, all at once, massive and perfect, leaving him frightened and nerveless at the prospect of articulating them word by scene by page. He would try to believe they were of the kind told in bars, not the kind to be ~ John Crowley

You sell a screenplay like you sell a car. If someone drives it off a cliff, that's it. ~ Rita Mae Brown

But sometimes a person who fits none of these categories comes into your life. This is the joker who pops out of the deck at odd intervals over the years, often during a moment of crisis. In the movies this sort of character is known as the fifth business, or the change agent. When he turns up in a film, you know he's there because the screenwriter put him there. But who is screenwriting our lives? Fate or coincidence? ~ Stephen King

The answer to the question, 'where's the drama?' is another question: 'what's the problem? ~ Billy Marshall Stoneking

The biggest difference between writing a movie and writing a novel? No one ever tries to sleep with me to get into one of my novels. ~ Mylo Carbia

Inspiring someone else to follow their dreams is the hope of anyone who has the courage to follow their own. ~ Dawn Garcia

There's nothing more important in making movies than the screenplay. ~ Richard Attenborough

What makes screenplays difficult are the things that require the most discipline and care and are just not seen by most people. I'm talking about movement - screenwriting is related to math and music, and if you zig here, you know you have to zag there. It's like the descriptions for a piece of music - you go fast or slow or with feeling. It's the same. ~ Robert Towne

For any role, I pretty much always go to the script, first and foremost. ~ Jessica Raine

Screenwriting is made of brevity. ~ A.D. Posey

I want to get off with the screenwriting. ~ Obie Trice

The script, I always believe, is the foundation of everything. And if you don't connect to that foundation, if you don't believe in that and feel that you wanna spend three, four months of your life exploring it, then all of the other elements are secondary. ~ Ewan McGregor

[G]reat stories communicate simple truths that reflect the poetic dimensions of the human soul. Not only do powerful characters help us understand our lives, their stories reflect our core values as human beings. ~ Kate Wright

And how deeply do I let business considerations affect [screenwriting] choices that might otherwise be more or less esthetic? ... Do I choose the upbeat rather than the downer ending because I know it will score better at the preview? Can the idea be sold in a single sentence? Can it compete with space aliens and tornadoes and missions impossible? ~ Edward Zwick

Your audience is your adversary. If you don't have one get one - imagine it. Imagine it now. To whom is your story addressed and why? Audience is always a creative act of the imagination. You can't tell your story effectively and leave it out. It must be alive in you, vividly alive. It is in conflict with everything that is false in what you have written. If it is an audience worthy of your talent and potential, it won't let you slide by the lies, the laziness, the shortcuts. If you don't take audience seriously, you can be sure it will return the favor. ~ Billy Marshall Stoneking

The personal screenplay- where you dive into the terrifying depths of your soul, unearth the most intimate details about yourself, and put it on paper for the world to see. Proceed with caution, for madness lies ahead. ~ A.D. Posey

No false promises are made that if you read these pages, you will learn the formula for writing a million-dollar screenplay; in fact, the dirty little secret of screenwriting books is that anyone who promises such formulas is lying. There ~ Peter Hanson

I'm from the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of screenwriting. I just like to preserve what works and ignore what doesn't work. ~ Andrew Dominik

Music, I find, gets you out of a trap [when screenwriting], because it speaks to your emotions directly, it's an abstract thing, it's not concerned with plot or story. And so music really helps - often I'll listen to the music and just write anything, just to get through. ~ Tony Grisoni

I was about 14 when I started with a theater group; it was like a stage group on the weekends alongside school. And it was run by a group of guys who'd been to drama school themselves in London. So they introduced us to techniques that they'd learn about, and they kind of informed us about improvisation and screenwriting and all of that stuff. ~ Imogen Poots

I guess I considered myself just sort of a sketch comedian, you know? Actual screenwriting hadn't really occurred to me as a viable job - I didn't really know anything about it. ~ Thomas Lennon

Vulnerability is not a weakness, it strengthens
one and allows one to be okay with ones emotions. Be in touch with yourself.
Be yourself! ~ Christine Willson