Screenwriting 101

Another great way to learn the craft: Listen to what pro screenwriters have to say about it. Hence my weekly Screenwriting 101 posts. Below are hundreds of them.

Abrams, J.J.: “The idea that this world we know isn’t just this world we know but that a package might arrive at your door…”

Adamson, Isaac: “Screenwriting is a kind of format where you spend six weeks or eight weeks… and you can have something that’s actually done.”

Alexander, Scott: “But through the scripts, I’m able to act out and scream at everything that bugs me…”

Alibar, Lucy: “Writing that scene, I ran a lot that day. I would write, go for a run, and come back.”

Allen, Jay Presson: “I do a script very fast, because I don’t stop. All day. All night, until I’m too sleepy…”

Amel, Arash: “I am a great believer in the psychology of character in screenplay. I think that almost…”

Amini, Hossein: “I love trying to find the simplest way to say something with the maximum impact on the person who’s…”

Anderson, Paul Thomas: ““Bad movie dialogue speaks in complete sentences without any overlapping…”

Anderson, Wes: “When I’m on a movie, part of that process is creating a setting for the story and a world that they live in.”

Arndt, Michael: “On Tuesday, May 23, 2000, at 4:27 p.m., I sat down to write Little Miss Sunshine…”

Aronofsky, Darren: “Then comes the great leap which is the first draft, I call it ‘the muscle draft…’”

Arriaga, Guillermo: “I want to have dark parts of my characters’ history so they can surprise me…”

Arriaga, Guillermo: “…when I have read all these manuals of screenwriting, they say things that I will never follow.”

Arriaga, Guillermo: “I put every effort in a screenplay to having beautiful language and a beauty of structure and a beauty…”

August, John: “I don’t write in sequence at all… I just write whatever scene appeals to me to write…”

August, John: “While working on Big Fish, I got very Method: I’d stare at a mirror until I could get myself crying…”

August, John: “If you have four ideas, all equally viable, I’d recommend writing the one that has the best ending…”

August, John: “A writer can always write. That’s one of the great luxuries we have: Words are cheap.”

Axelrod, George: “The first half of any script of mine has been rewritten forty — fifty times…”

Ball, Alan: “[In American Beauty] Lester’s a man who in midlife has completely lost his passion…”

Bass, Ron: “Everything I write is in three acts, and I actually start with three pieces of paper…”

Bass, Ron: “I’ve always felt that writing was communication… making your reader see exactly what you see in your mind.”

Beall, Will: “The process is that I force myself to sit down and write and hope it doesn’t turn out shitty…”

Beckwith, Nikole: “I think if you’re inviting people into a story, you should invite them into all parts…”

Benedek, Tom: “Every script we write is a piece of ourselves. We may say we are writing a script…”

Bennett, Charles: “The construction [of the story] is the most important goddamned thing…”

Bentivegna, Roberto: “I think it’s very dangerous when you get bogged down in rules, because that’s…”

Benton, Robert: “We made a set of decisions, the first of which was to not pass moral judgment…”

Bernstein, Walter: “I accept the cooperative nature of filmmaking. It’s one of the things that attracts me to movies, that idea…”

Bird, Brad: “To make something really great and different and interesting means taking risks and…”

Black, Shane: “I’ll write down… snippets for scenes and… dialog… and throw them all in a shoe box.”

Black, Shane: “I think about the audience in the sense that I serve as my own audience. I have to please myself that way…”

Black, Shane: “I assumed there weren’t many rules and you just sort of did whatever you wanted to…”

Blanchard, Carter: “If you grab people that early in a script, they’re going to keep reading.”

Boal, Mark: “So the structure came about in an attempt to be faithful to the reality of the situation…”

Boam, Jeffrey: “Plot tries to engage intellectually but that’s not how an audience responds…”

Bomback, Mark: “A big misconception people have about these franchise movies is that all the studios care about is the action.”

Borrelli, Chris: “You should always be open to ideas and stories. I have an idea file. I look back over it…”

Borten, Craig: “For me, it’s the characters, breaking the characters. That’s what I spend most of my time with. Once I’ve done that…”

Boyer, Jon: “A bad script written is still better than an amazing one that isn’t.”

Boyle, Danny: “Beyond persistence, the only advice I ever give to young filmmakers is, don’t be shy in the way you tell a story.”

Brackett, Leigh: “I was very poor on construction when I first began. If I could hit it right from…”

Brickman, Marshall: “The first script of Annie Hall was much more episodic, tangential, and novelistic…”

Brancato, John D.: “I’ve read screenplays, plenty of them, where the writer obviously hates what he’s…”

Brooks, Albert: “I got so good at writing to a budget, my brain was restricting myself. I’d write, It’s a stormy night. Then I’d cross out…”

Brooks, Richard: “I can make a movie with half-assed camerawork, or with actors who are not quite up to par…”

Brown, Rita Mae: “You sell a screenplay like you sell a car. If somebody drives it off a cliff, that’s it…”

Brown, Rita Mae: “Character is destiny. The resolution of any plot must come from within the character…”

Broyles, William: “Writing really is a process of discovery. The biggest enemy is being satisfied…”

Bujalski, Andrew: “Write out the scene the way you hear it in your head. Then read it and find the parts where the characters are saying…”

Burnett, Allison: “A lot of writers try to get approval and love way too early. Get the script right first.”

Burnett, W.R.: “The trouble with most film writing is that too many writers have no feel for film…”

Bynum, Elijah: “There’s a difference between characteristics and character. It’s not until you really throw yourself…”

Cain, James M.: “Slack is one fault and slick is another. Both are bad faults in story.”

Cannell, Stephen J.: “I was self-taught, but I also was using a lot of rules that I developed myself for plotting and for character construction.”

Carolin, Reid: “There’s a magic to being present when you’re actually writing a character…”

Carrière, Jean-Claude: “The language of film is very complex. It is made up not only of images…”

Chandler, Raymond: “The challenge of screenwriting is saying much in little and then take half of…”

Carpenter, John: “You need some thematic element that gets the audience going, reaches out to them.”

Cassavetes, John: “People who are making films today are too concerned with mechanics — technical things instead of feeling.”

Chayefsky, Paddy: “I have no compassion when it comes to cutting. No pity, no sympathy…”

Chayefsky, Paddy: “My dialogue is precise. And it’s true. I think out the truth of what the people are…”

Chayefsky Paddy: “Artists don’t talk about art. Artists talk about work. If I have anything to say to young writers, it’s stop thinking…”

Chazelle, Damien: “I know my strengths, and I know my weaknesses… I’m very good at sitting around and brainstorming…”

Chazelle, Damien: “The thing I learned [from Whiplash], especially after having written a bunch of stuff that wasn’t personal, was that the more…”

Chervin, Stan: “I think it’s always easier to revise a script, even a truly awful one, than face the tyranny…”

Cholodenko, Lisa: “So it’s really important to know not to panic, it’s all going to come together…”

Chun, Tze: “When I want to come up with a new project, I will sit down and I will try to write 25 ideas a day for a week…”

Cody, Diablo: “Every week I learn some new word the kids are saying and I try to integrate it…”

Cody, Diablo: “I don’t have a formal rewrite process; I just compulsively groom and re-groom scenes…”

Coen, Dana: “Is the scene driven by the intent of the characters? Are there external and internal obstacles, and are…”

Coen, Joel: “Every movie ever made is an attempt to remake ‘The Wizard of Oz.’”

Cohen, Larry: “When I write, I’m watching the movie in my head, imagining it. I want to be in it…”

Cohen, Spenser: “People always say, write what you know, and I think it’s write what you know…”

Coogan, Steve: “To write from personal experience, you also need the humility to be able to…”

Coppola, Francis Ford: “Always try to discover what the theme of the movie is in one or two words.”

Cretton, Destin Daniel: “When I start writing, I just have to keep reminding myself to make every…”

Crowe, Cameron: “The most exciting thing is when you take the pages you’ve just written and heft…”

Curtis, Richard: “I like to really live with an idea. A film is not a flirtation, it’s a relationship.”

Curtis, Richard: “I’m always choosing between three films I’d like to make and I always choose the one that means the most to me.”

Darabont, Frank: “How much do you love it? How much are you willing to give it? Only the person…”

Darabont, Frank: “Everybody wants to hear, ‘I can teach you a three-act structure, I can give you a…’”

DePalma, Brian: “The problem with writing a movie is you’ve got to have a great idea.”

Densham, Pen: “I interpret this to mean that all stories come from fundamental issues of human…”

Derrickson, Scott: “Many filmmakers, especially young ones, are afraid being ‘pigeonholed’, but…”

Derrickson, Scott: “Reading a mediocre screenplay is like driving when you’re sleepy — every minute is work.”

Derrickson, Scott: “The Divine Comedy of Filmmaking: Writing = Inferno. Shooting = Purgatorio. Editing = Paradiso.”

Devlin, Lindsay: “I look at articles, whether it’s true stories, or scientific‑based things, to kind of find those kernels…”

DiPego, Gerald: “The first thing the executive said was, ‘We really like your script for what it can be.’”

DiLapo, James: “Emotional authenticity… is more important than historical authenticity. If you can get…”

Dobbs, Lem: “You have to inculcate movies, not ‘screenwriting.’ There are shapes and patterns…”

Duffield, Brian: “Interesting things happening to interesting people is basically the only rule of screenwriting.”

Duncan, Patrick: “Every time I write, I find myself going through a form of self-examination…”

Dunham, Lena: ““It’s amazing to me that Hollywood persists in writing these two-dimensional female…”

Dunne, Philip: “Every scene should advance the story. The other thing… let the characters tell the…”

Dunne, Philip: “If you get an idea in the middle of the night, it’s a good idea to write it down, or it’s…”

Durand, Allan: “The way I did it is every 5 to 10 pages, I wanted a big fist to come out of the…”

DuVernay Ava: “When I write a screenplay, I’m writing for myself. I’m the director and I need to create…”

Elliott, Ted: “If you look at a movie and say, ‘That’s crap, I can do better,’ then basically all you’re…”

Ellis, Trey: “I haven’t always loved Hollywood, but I’ve always loved roller coasters. It wasn’t till I…”

Ephron, Nora: “Don’t write what they want, they don’t know what they want, just make it GOOD.”

Epstein, Julius: “It’s the words, it always gets back to the words…”

Eszterhas, Joe: “Write it from your heart. Life is short; shorter than you think…”

Eszterhas, Joe: “Don’t pitch stories, write spec scripts. Why try to convince a roomful of unread egomaniacs…”

Farrelly, Peter: “Our feeling is you need three-dimensional characters for our type of comedy to work…”

Feig, Paul: “I say [dialogue] out loud. If I can’t say it and make it sound convincing and not clunky…”

Fergus, Mark: “They’re [actors] giving you a truth test on your own material.”

Ferguson, Larry: “Take a yellow Marks-A-Lot and highlight every verb in this screenplay…”

Ferguson, Larry: “Get an audience to care before you throw ’em into an action sequence.”

Ferguson, Larry: “There’s only one difference between a writer and somebody who isn’t a writer. One writes.”

Fincher, David: “The thing I always say to any writer that I’m working with is: Just make sure that in any argument, EVERYONE is right.”

Fisher, Carrie: “Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and the confidence will follow.”

Fisher, Mickey: “Now when I sit down to write the script, I know scene by scene who wants what and why and all the basic…”

Folsom, Stephany: “Don’t worry about getting an agent or a manager. When you have enough quality work under your belt…”

Foner, Naomi: “If you’re doing it to tell stories that need to be told, you can get yourself through…”

Foote, Horton: “For me there was a whole period of unlearning the bad habits I had picked up in my conventional…”

Foreman, Carl: “When I first came out to Hollywood, it never occurred to me that the story had to be…”

Foreman, Carl: “I rewrite and rewrite and rewrite. I know in advance that my so-called first draft will be my tenth draft.”

Forte, Joe: “It’s important to build a broad life that feeds you, that nourishes you, gives you stability.”

Forte, Joe: “There’s a phrase you hear in Hollywood: ‘It’s a movie.’ It’s code for, ‘This script encompasses everything we need it to be.’”

Frank, Scott: “Then I tell my own story and filter it through my own point of view…”

Frank, Scott: “The best writing is subconscious where you don’t know that you’re doing it…”

Frazier, F. Scott: “I firmly believe that the currency of the screenwriter is a finished script. Not an…”

Friedhof, Andrew: “I think it’s an act of folly to write a screenplay as though you’re going into production tomorrow. The first thing you should aim…”

Friedman, Jeremiah: “It’s tricky because you have to walk that line between staying open to feedback…”

Gaghan, Stephan: “”I realized screenwriting was a real art form. I had to prostrate myself before it and study it if I wanted…”

Ganz, Lowell: “We’re always trying to have [what a character says be]… specific, honest, and emotional.”

Garcia, Liz W.: “Outlining is really tough work, it’s the necessary work that I loathe. It’s necessary so …”

Garland, Alex: “Stories are my primary concern because I think they are a… vehicle for themes…”

Gary, John: “Screenwriting is an ocean of nos surrounding a handful of yesses. All you need is one yes.”

Gary, John: “A movie is about an emotional struggle. The physical struggle is a manifestation of that.”

Gelbart, Larry: “I just know when you’re in trouble at the end, it’s because you were in trouble in the beginning. There’s no…”

Gerwig, Greta: “I have gotten into baseball recently, and whenever I have trouble writing, I think about the pace of baseball. It’s slow…”

Gilroy, Dan: “The style of the screenplay can often not just enhance the screenplay–it can move the screenplay forward…”

Gilroy, Tony: “Screenwriting is the biggest bunch of rules anywhere. It’s gotta be 125 pages, gotta be…”

Golden, Joshua: “The concept, of course, has to be original. But if you have strong characters, the rest will follow.”

Goldman, William: “Nobody sets out to fuck up your movie. It’s not like the director or the star wake…”

Goldman, William: “Rule of thumb: You always attack a movie scene as late as you possibly can…”

Goldman, William: “The first thing is, I read it and decide, ‘Do I really care about this project?’”

Goldman, William: “The most exciting day of your life is your first day on a movie set, and the dullest day of your life is the second day.”

Goldman, William: “Screenplays don’t have to read like an instruction manual for a refrigerator. You can write them as a pleasurable read.”

Goldsman, Akiva: “Writing is both a pleasure and a struggle. There are times when it’s really aversive and unpleasant…”

Grahame-Smith, Seth: “”Writing a novel and writing a screenplay have nothing to do with each other…”

Grant, Susannah: “My goal in the first draft is to create, for the reader, the emotional experience that watching the movie…”

Grillo-Marxuach, Javier: “A great script… creates an irresistible narrative flow that propels the reader…”

Guggenheim, David: “I think screenwriting is the cleanest and quickest way to break into the industry.”

Guzikowski, Aaron: “I think learning the craft is how you break into Hollywood. You just need to do it everyday and love it and be passionate…”

Hampton, Christopher: “I don’t believe in any of those rules for writing screenplays. What that gives you is a formula.”

Hampton, Christopher: “David Lean had several principles, that he repeated more than once. Lesson One was that the most important…”

Hare, David: “But that’s when I began to realize why my own films were so bad: I’d never subjected them to this narrative test…”

Hart, James: “Find that material which speaks to you and has a certain truth…”

Hart, James: “So I listen to my kids. Even now, at ages eighteen and sixteen, our story meetings…”

Hart, Julia: “I write a ton and then I’ll cut a bunch of it out. I’ll write like seven lines where there…”

Hartofilis, Sean: “I don’t think writing is as much an act as a way of being…”

Hayes, John Michael: “I want to put as much as I can into the first draft… to get all the emotion, color…”

Heisserer, Eric: “You know you’re in the presence of a screenwriter in command of their craft when…”

Hensleigh, Jonathan: “Well made action pictures, the action sequences don’t exist in a vacuum…”

Herskovitz, Marshall: “If I have a criticism of many screenwriters, it’s that they are too wedded to…”

Higgins, Colin: “The job of the screenwriter is to run the film in the reader’s imagination. And nothing should get…”

Hill, John: “Terrific scenes are the coin of the screenwriting realm. But what are some characteristics…”

Hill, Walter: “When I’m working alone, the old hard way. Longhand. Fountain pen. Legal pad…”

Hitchcock, Alfred: “To make a great film, you need three things — the script, the script and the script.”

Hitchcock, Alfred: “First we write the screenplay, then we add the dialogue.”

Houston, Velina Hasu: “The vigorous desire to make something happen… is mandatory for writers…”

Huggins, Roy: “A screenplay is a series of interesting scenes. Too often scenes are boring in order to head to an unusual ending…”

Hyams, Peter: “If you’re not prepared to be rejected, don’t try to write films.”

Hyams, Peter: “If I want to make a film, I’m asking somebody for money. The only reason why they’re going to give me money…”

Ingelsby, Brad: “What does a character want and why do they want it? Those are what I look at when…”

Jackson, Peter: “I think [humor] helps make these people feel as real as you or I, rather than being…”

James, Elgin: “We have all this beautiful wreckage inside, then you try to get it out somehow…”

January, Michael: “Hollywood lives and dies on something that seems new, but is very much like…”

Jenkins, Barry: “I think it’s important to stay in the world of the characters. It’s more about once you enter that space, you gotta just stay in it.”

Jones, Amy Holden: “Roger Corman taught me a very valuable lesson…”

Joseph, Rajiv: “I feel that every story has to have an idea that transcends the action and the characters…”

Joy, Lisa: “The thing that is first and foremost to me is, ‘Do I love the character? Do I empathize with them?’”

Kamen, Robert Mark: “Write what makes you excited, and if it makes you excited, and you’re any good, it will excite…”

Kamen, Robert Mark: “If you’ve got craft, you got game. If you got game, you can write your way in and out of anything.”

Kasdan, Larry: “Very often my films are about the conflict between our ideas and our desires…”

Kaufman, Charlie: “I’m interested in trying to find a real moment between people…”

Kaufman, Charlie: “That’s something I always ask myself: ‘Is this a movie that I would go to see?’”

Kazan, Nicholas: “‘No’ is the single most important thing a writer can say…”

Kelley, William: “The secret to screenwriting is short sentences, small words, and BIG pictures.”

Khouri, Callie: “It [Thelma & Louise] wasn’t meant to be a literal ending…”

Killen, Kyle: “We talk around things, at things, and about things, without ever overtly stating them…”

Kinberg, Simon: “In my experience, audiences go to movies to feel. When the movie starts to break down and it becomes…”

Koenig, Eric: “Write because you love writing. Write because you want to make the reader laugh, or cry, or cringe…”

Koppelman, Brian: “The job of the writer on a studio assignment is to deliver a shootable script as defined by other people…”

Krasna, Norman: ““When you are committed to the skeleton of a beginning, a middle and an end, the cleverness is in concealing…”

Kubrick, Stanley: “I think the best plot is no apparent plot. I like a slow start, the start gets under the audience’s skin…”

Kubrick, Stanley: “A film is — or should be — more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings…”

Kunka, Daniel: “No matter what the concept is, no matter what spectacle you put out there…”

Kurosawa, Akira: “With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a mediocre director can make…”

LaBute, Neil: “When you look at the stories I’ve written, the situations are already ripe for trouble…”

LaTulippe, Geoff: “If something funny or scary or interesting happens to me, the first thing I think is, ‘Can I turn that into a script?’”

Launer, Dale: “Take away the story, and you have no movie…”

Lagravenese, Richard: “I have to check whether I lean toward doing something as a temptation or as a…”

Lasseter, John: “There are three things you need to do to make a movie that is successful, a move that truly entertains your audience…”

Lawton, J.F.: “You do have to fully commit to what you do and not be worried about the consequences…”

Lehane, Dennis: “Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. That first draft is just spaghetti on the wall…”

Lehman, Ernest: “It’s a juggling of beginnings, middles and endings so that they… seem to be moving…”

Lehman, Ernest: “One of the most important feats in screenwriting is to convey exposition without it appearing to be exposition…”

Lemkin, Jonathan: “If you let your lifestyle expend your last check, you then say yes to a really bad…”

Lieber, Jeffrey: “If the end of the scene is obvious from the beginning of the scene, there’s no point…”

Lochhead, Seth: “That’s our job, to spark curiosity and emotion from an audience, to allow them to…”

Logan, John: “I remember writing the line in Gladiator, ‘Are you not entertained?’ that Maximus says…”

Lubitsch, Ernst: “It is the task of the [screenwriter] to invent little pieces of business…”

Luhrmann, Baz: “Packing the house was the primary and foremost concern for him [Shakespeare].”

Lynch, David: “If you want to make a film, you get ideas for 70 scenes. Put them on 3-by-5 cards…”

Lynch, David: “The world to me is a mixture of the two. Intuition is thought and feeling working…”

Macpherson, Jeanie: “Each scene must be a drama in itself. The whole picture must be made up of…”

Mamet, David: “Theoretically… what one wants to do is put the protagonist and the audience…”

Mamet, David: “[Screenwriting’s] all about working on it and working on it until it comes out even…”

Mamet, David: “Forget every rule Syd Field, Robert McKee or any other screenwriting guru ever taught…”

Mann, Michael: “I can arrange the sequence of all these encounters without regard to chronology…”

Marcel, Kelly: “Every scene has to be doing something. It has to be moving the story along, peeling off a layer…”

Marion, Francis: “It is true… that a character exists only in his emotions and sensations…”

Marks, Justin: “Sometimes you’re swinging your way through a first draft like a blind miner with a…”

Marks, Justin: “There’s not a single battle a writer can win on a conference call, a notes meeting, anything. We win the battle…”

Marlowe, Andrew: ““Sometimes you’ll get a note, ‘This scene is boring, can we put in a car chase?’ What you should take from that note is…”

Marshall, Garry: “There are three drafts of a screenplay in the development process…”

Marshall, Garry: “My main mentor was Carl Reiner because he took the time to explain stories…”

Martin, Steve: “Pure writing is the most rewarding… because it is constantly accompanied by a voice…”

Martin, Steve: “I want three comic scenes in the movie that are funny because they have been set up…”

Matheson, Richard: “I’m a storyteller. The story is the thing. They can put that on my tombstone: Storyteller.”

Mazin, Craig: “I want comedies to be about something. I want movies to be about something. I want…”

McCanlies, Tim: “That second act, for me, is the most fun, because the first and third act have such clearly defined functions.”

McCoy, Chris: “Good dialogue comes from character development. The better you know your…”

McKee, Robert: “Screenwriting is the art of making the mental physical. We create visual correlatives…”

McKenna, Aline Brosh: “Young writers seem to forget that people in the industry are desperate for good material…”

McMurtry, Larry: “What’s needed in screenwork is imagination, an agile mind, and a facility for on-the-spot invention…”

McQuarrie, Christopher: “Screenwriting tip: A mystery is only as good as its conclusion, especially if that conclusion is…”

McQuarrie, Christopher: “Screenwriting tip: It’s as simple as giving them exactly what they expect in a way they’ve never seen before.”

Melfi, Theodore: “If you give an actor an honest role, they’ll want to play it, and they’ll know how to play it.”

Melfi, Theodore: “As a writer and as a director, your sole purpose in life is to make your work for the audience, period.”

Meyer, Nicholas: “The only change I made was to eliminate the words ‘cut to,’ which always seemed…”

Meyers, Nancy: “My first draft was exactly 250 pages. I didn’t have brads deep enough, long enough…”

Milius, John: “I used to tell a screenwriting class, ‘I could teach you all the basic techniques in fifteen…”

Mills, Mike: “Usually, I find writing to be an ongoing process of failure. I’m like a World War One infantry unit. I just march forward every day…”

Minghella, Anthony: “The first words anybody in the movies wants to say is no, and the job of the director or producer or writer…”

Minghella, Anthony: “Waiting is part of writing. When I write the word ‘waiting’ by hand it even looks like ‘writing.’”

Morris, Jeff: “I think quality prep work makes writing the script much easier. My writing is more focused…”

Nathanson, Jeff: “A big mistake people make is to over-research, and it seems to show in the movies.”

Nelson, Tim Blake: “I have to be responsible to a schedule to be the sort of writer/director I want to be. Every day I get up…”

Nichols, Jeff: “When working out a story, I try to stay away from traditional outlines. Trying to sit down and begin by listing the scenes…”

Nolan, Christopher: “The thriller is the one genre where it’s absolutely demanded that character be…”

Norman, Marc: “The thing you have to remember is that you better put some passion on the page…”

Norman, Marc: “My best writing has been on the the scripts I wrote as suicide notes to the industry…”

O’Dwyer, Declan: “Cinematic language tells us there’s going to be showdown at high-noon…”

Otto, Shawn Lawrence: “I took a class in screenwriting because I wanted to strengthen my sense of…”

Palmer, Nick: “Clever writing and smart dialogue are great, but they can’t make up for a weak, central…”

Palumbo, Dennis: “They’re not in trouble if they say No. Nothing bad can happen to them and they won’t lose any money. The moment they say Yes…”

Payne, Alexander: “Humor comes from the most painful situations you can think of…”

Payne, Alexander: “I don’t think you can have drama without comedy and vice versa…”

Perry, Eleanor: “Each writer starts differently, but I think the only valid way is to start with character…”

Phelan, Anna Hamilton: “Your first enemy… is yourself… that little critic that says, ‘This is terrible’…”

Pierson, Frank: “One thing I’ve discovered about writing is to form a habit that becomes an addiction…”

Pierson, Frank: “It is our craft that gives us the ability to hang on year after year and keep on writing…”

Pizzo, Angelo: “A few ideas important to me. Before writing Fade In…”

Powell, Ashleigh: “You start the story with the main character’s flaw, you show how that character is transforming…”

Price, Richard: “There’s such a difference between written dialogue and spoken dialogue…”

Price, Richard: “The one thing that never fails to surprise me is how even a little dialogue is always too…”

Price, Richard: “It’s all about what happens next, what happens next. It’s speed chess, not chess.”

Ramis, Harold: “For me, a screenplay starts with something I can tell other people in five minutes…”

Ray, Billy: “Putting a scene in a location that puts your characters under pressure is a good thing.”

Ray, Billy: “When I know what it is I’m going to be writing next, I’ll go out and buy a soundtrack…”

Ray, Billy: “At the top of my computer in big, bold letters, it says, ‘What is the simple emotional journey?’”

Reese, Rhett: “The iterative process of writing and rewriting and bolding things that have changed…”

Refn, Nicholas Winding: “I’ve always liked characters who have to transform themselves…”

Rhodes, Justin: “Writing is a journey through complexity to simplicity. What is the simple emotional…”

Rifkin, Adam: “It’s always good to write something that you know you can write really well especially…”

Rifkin, Adam: “If you’re a purist and you don’t want your words touched, you should either be a novelist or an author…”

Rivera, Jose: “I did a film for Disney. It was a one-word idea they had: ‘shadows’”…

Robinson, Phil Alden: “One of the reasons that people resent writers is because where we are writing…”

Rodriguez, Robert: “The trick is not getting up to get coffee or other distractions. Hours will fly by.”

Roessner, Chris: “Know if it’s that independent, quirky comedy. Know if it’s that big, $200 million action film…”

Root, Wells: “The most important thing in a script is to have strong leading characters. Plot and structure and the rest…”

Rosenberg, Scott: “My rule is always, if I finish a spec script, there’s five people that I give it to…”

Rosenthal, Mark: “The joy of screenwriting comes from its pure narrative requirements. It’s a little like haiku…”

Ross, Gary: “So many kids work backward methodically, calculatingly… instead of from the inside out…”

Ross, Gary: “You have to be patient enough to let the movie talk to you and to listen to it.”

Rossio, Terry: “Plot problems are always character solutions.”

Roth, Eric: “I think part of being a good screenwriter is being as concise as possible….”

Rothman, Scott: “ “Your story needs to matter to you. You’re not just writing it to entertain yourself. It’s got to be…”

Russell, David O.: ““I have to write down all the things about an idea that excite me and I have to…”

Russo, Greg: “Never stop learning. If every day I’m learning something new as a writer…”

Rubin, Bruce Joel: “If you trust the moment as you write, it will always bring you what you need…”

Sargent, Alvin: “You must write everyday. Free yourself. Free association. An hour alone a day…”

Sargent, Alvin: “Rigidity is the mother of rigidity. It’s very exciting to be ridiculous. I wish I could be even more so…”

Sayles, John: “When I’m writing a script for myself, my rule of thumb is it’s my story, I focus on what…”

Scorcese, Martin: “The films I constantly revisit have held up for me over the years not because of plot but because of character.”

Scott, Allan: “I think the craft of fiction is just a jigsaw puzzle; and half the fun is doing it.”

Schrader, Paul: “I endlessly chart and re-chart a movie. Before I sit down to write, I have all the…”

Schrader, Paul: “Art and screenwriting are functional… they can help you see your life in perspective.”

Schulman, Tom: “I want to know my whole story works before I start writing.”

Seltzer, David: “If you go in with formula, you come out with formula. The whole thrill of being a…”

Shelton, Ron: “Movie stars like to shine. They like to have their movie-star moments…”

Shelton, Ron: “When I pitch, I pitch like Roger Clemens or brush them back like Sal Maglie used to do. I’m throwing…”

Sheridan, Jim: “Emotion, by definition, is invisible. So cinema is, by definition, dealing with the…”

Sheridan, Taylor: “I have 50 great ideas but what helps me choose what to write is knowing how it ends. You gotta know how it ends…”

Shyamalan, M. Night: “The Sixth Sense started out as a serial killer movie. Malcolm started out as a…”

Silliphant, Sterling: “The writing is the easiest part of it. The trying period is the period of…”

Silliphant, Sterling: “I map out five pages a day, thirty-five pages a week. I keep revising the schedule and the four weeks…”

Simmons, Will: “This fast-food style of storytelling is bad for movies. Catharsis comes in many forms…”

Simon, David: “Exposition sucks the life out of your story.”

Simon, Neil: “At this point, I don’t make outlines at all. I make an outline only in my mind…”

Simon, Neil: “I try not to write villains per se because I think life is the villain. I think how we cope with life is the conflict.”

Simon, Roger: “Dreyfuss said Spielberg used to tell him the way to adapt books was to throw the book away and start writing what he remembered…”

Solomon, Ed: “The easiest thing to remember about writing comedy is if it generally makes you laugh…”

Soloway, Jill: “The people who I believe in the most create work about people who are real…”

Sorkin, Aaron : “I’d write it to the end and go back and write it all over again, go back and write it…”

Spaihts, Jon: “So much of screenwriting is information management. A script is made of interlocking…”

Sparling, Chris: “No matter how big or high concept your story is, it only works if there’s a small, personal story at its core.”

Stepansky, Barbara: “The most time I devote to is character. I think that plots develop out of character needs and wants…”

Stevens, Dana: “”The truth is, I couldn’t solve my [writer’s] block with location. Or silence or…”

Stillman, Whit: “If the observation is right, and funny or interesting things are happening right along…”

Straughan, Peter: “I understand why they want to turn writing into a science, but I think it’s a mistake.”

Straughan, Peter: “Like a lot of male writers, I naturally gravitate toward male characters. I tend to think…”

Stone, Oliver: “The first draft, the first structure is really important… Do it fast, don’t get stuck.”

Strick, Wesley: “I have two tricks. One is that I write every day, regardless of whether I want to or not…”

Strong, Danny: “I always try to make the opening image of the film reflect the theme or the story in its entirety. I don’t always succeed…”

Susco, Stephen: “‘Look, we don’t who the fuck you guys are. So we’re not going to really do anything for you.’”

Sweeney, Mike: “There seems to be a lot of ‘if only’ floating around the amateur screenwriting world. If only I can get a rep. If only I can get on a list…”

Sweeney, Mike: “Remember that not every idea is a movie. You don’t want to run out of plot before you run out of pages.”

Swetnam, John: “The question to ask about a new story idea: Can you really see it opening at a theater…”

Swicord, Robin: “You have to understand how the business works. Sometimes, I’m so mystified I can’t believe this is a business.”

Tally, Ted: “The only thing that matters in a screenplay is the first ten pages, and the only thing that…”

Tally, Ted: “It [a treatment] is about twenty-five or thirty single-spaced pages normally, in paragraph outline…”

Tarantino, Quentin: “I need to know where these [characters] come from. It’s a universe I’m creating…”

Tarantino, Quentin: “The final draft of the script is the first cut of the movie, and the final cut of the…”

Towne, Robert : “The single most important question… one must ask… about a character is…”

Towne, Robert: “In the case of Chinatown, I wrote at least 20 different… long, long step-outlines…”

Towne, Robert: “In rewriting what you have to be able to do is read a piece of material, say what’s…”

Towne, Robert: “if you don’t set everything up in the beginning, you’ll pay for it in the middle or in…”

Towne, Robert: “A movie is really only four or five moments between two people; the rest exists to give those moments their impact…”

Turner, Guinevere: “I stay positive because most days, I don’t have to get up until I want to get up.”

Turney, Catherine: “Never attack a scene head on, always do it obliquely, if possible. Never have anything on the nose…”

Uhls, Jim: “I write those scenes first, out of order. I call it ‘the scent of blood.’”

Verbinski, Gore: “It’s very important to me that when you watch the movie, any character is a door…”

Wallace, Randall: “That’s what stories do. They aren’t philosophy… or sermons or propaganda…”

Wambaugh, Joseph: “Screenwriters are like little guppies swimming in an aquarium filled with sharks…”

Ward, David S.: “If you’re working on something you’re not really into, you’re not gonna do it very well…”

Waters, Daniel: “The first draft is the one thing they can’t take away from you, so revel in it…”

Weber, Michael W.: “I used to hate on bad movies. Now I’m amazed that any movies ever get made.”

Weitz, Chris: “That’s the worst thing about most comedy writing that goes wrong: nobody has respect…”

Wells, Audrey: “‘One day, you will sell your screenplay, and then your problems will begin…’”

Werwie, Michael: “When you’re first breaking a story and when you’re doing that first pass, it’s…”

Whedon, Joss: “Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, sauté it, whatever. MAKE.”

Whedon, Joss: “If you don’t know who everybody is and why they’re there, why they’re feeling what they’re feeling, and why they’re doing what…”

Whitta, Gary: “Allow yourself to experiment, to bend and break the rules you’ve learned…”

Wilder, Billy: “If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act…”

Wilder, Billy: “I find with young writers, and some of them with very good ideas, that they get lost in technical…”

Wisdom, Victoria: “Ideas are a dime a dozen, execution is everything…”

Zackham, Justin: “For me, screenwriting is all about setting characters in motion and as a writer just chasing them…”