Quote

An audience is never wrong. An individual member of it may be an imbecile, but a thousand imbeciles together in the dark - that is critical genius.

Billy Wilder

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Billy Wilder
Age: 95 †
Born: 1906
Born: June 22
Died: 2002
Died: March 27
Film Director
Film Producer
Filmmaker
Journalist
Screenwriter
Writer
Samuel Wilder
Wrong
Imbeciles
Individual
Member
Together
Critical
May
Members
Work
Genius
Never
Thousand
Audience
Dark
Imbecile

More quotes by Billy Wilder

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Well, nobody's perfect.
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If something smells bad, why put your nose in it?
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I never overestimate the audience, nor do I underestimate them. I just have a very rational idea as to who we’re dealing with, and that we’re not making a picture for Harvard Law School, we’re making a picture for middle-class people, the people that you see on the subway, or the people that you see in a restaurant. Just normal people.
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Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's.
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The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
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A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.
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[on pop idol Donny Osmond] He has Van Gogh's ear for music.
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You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning.
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When Chaplin found a voice to say what was on his mind, he was like a child of eight writing lyrics for Beethoven's Ninth.
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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.
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I'm delighted with it, because it used to be that films were the lowest form of art. Now we've got something to look down on.
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My Aunt Minnie would always be punctual and never hold up production, but who would pay to see my Aunt Minnie?
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An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation.
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I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut.
Billy Wilder
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I'm not happy. I'm not happy at all.
Billy Wilder
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I don't go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons.
Billy Wilder
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Hollywood didn't kill Marilyn Monroe, it's the Marilyn Monroes who are killing Hollywood.
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I had one life. And what did I do? Wasted it in some palooka preliminaries in Spain, just before Hitler and Chamberlain warm up for the main event.
Billy Wilder
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Make subtlety obvious.
Billy Wilder
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If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you.
Billy Wilder