Billy Wilder > Quotes

“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.”
― Billy Wilder

“Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's.”
― Billy Wilder

“You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning.”
― Billy Wilder

“Jerry: Oh, you don't understand, Osgood! Ehhhh... I'm a man.
Osgood: Well, nobody's perfect.
”
― Billy Wilder, Some Like It Hot

“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.”
― Billy Wilder

“A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.”
― Billy Wilder, Billy Wilder in Hollywood

“That's the trouble with you readers. You know all the plots.”
― Billy Wilder, Sunset Boulevard

“If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you.”
― Billy Wilder

“Everyone in the audience is an idiot, but taken together, they're a genius.”
― Billy Wilder

“That's the way it crumbles, cookie-wise”
― Billy Wilder, The Apartment

“You're as good as the best thing you've ever done.”
― Billy Wilder

“You're only as good as the best thing you've ever done.”
― Billy Wilder

“As a class, Americans are extremely impatient. While they are the first to catch onto a joke, they are also the quickest to get bored. In Europe, a film producer can take his time establishing a mood. He can have dozens of dissolves of clouds. Americans audiences will not sit still for them, no matter how beautiful or exciting they may be. If they show the second cloud shot they expect to see an airplane in it. Then, if there's a third, they expect to see the plane explode in mid-air. The story must progress with every angle.”
― Billy Wilder

“The big trick is to find the subject that relates to a human experience. Explain the rules, involve people, and they will do most of the work for you.”
― Billy Wilder

“Everybody has been looking down on movies as something third-rate, up until, thank God, the invention of television. Now we have something to look down on!”
― Billy Wilder

“Goodbye, Baby.
Walter Neff (Fred McMurray) Double Indemnity”
― Billy Wilder

“Studios! You can't make picture with 'em, you can't make pictures without 'em.”
― Billy Wilder

“They beached me, like a harpooned baby whale, and started to check the damage, just for the record ... By this time the whole joint was jumping -- cops, reporters, neighbors, passersby -- as much hoopdedoo as we get in Los Angeles when they open a Super Market. Even the newsreel guys came roaring in. Here was an item everybody could have some fun with, the heartless so-and-so's. What would they do to her? Even if she got away with it in court- crime of passion - temporary insanity - those headlines would kill her: Forgotten Star a Slayer--Aging Actress--Yesterday's Glamour Queen...”
― Billy Wilder

“Individually, the audience is stupid. Collectively, the audience is a genius.”
― Billy Wilder

“Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else’s.”
― Billy Wilder