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
Audience
Dark
Imbecile
Wrong
Imbeciles
Individual
Member
Together
Critical
May
Members
Work
Genius
Never
Thousand

More quotes by Billy Wilder

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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.
Billy Wilder
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If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.
Billy Wilder
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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.
Billy Wilder
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If there's anything I hate more than not being taken seriously, it's being taken too seriously.
Billy Wilder
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If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you.
Billy Wilder
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The best director is the one you don't see.
Billy Wilder
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I just made pictures I would've liked to see.
Billy Wilder
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We are on the track of something absolutely mediocre.
Billy Wilder
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Shoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award.
Billy Wilder
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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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Hollywood didn't kill Marilyn Monroe, it's the Marilyn Monroes who are killing Hollywood.
Billy Wilder
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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?
Billy Wilder
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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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What critics call dirty in our pictures, they call lusty in foreign films.
Billy Wilder
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If something smells bad, why put your nose in it?
Billy Wilder
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Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's.
Billy Wilder
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A bad play folds and is forgotten, but in pictures we don't bury our dead. When you think it's out of your system, your daughter sees it on television and says, My father is an idiot.
Billy Wilder
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The ultimate trick is to convince, persuade. Every single person out there is an idiot, but collectively they're a genius.
Billy Wilder
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Jerry: Oh, you don't understand, Osgood! Ehhhh... I'm a man. Osgood: Well, nobody's perfect.
Billy Wilder
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[on pop idol Donny Osmond] He has Van Gogh's ear for music.
Billy Wilder