Quote collection
64 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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."
"It was a hot afternoon and I can still remember the smell of honeysuckle all along the street. How can I have known that murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle?"
"The ultimate trick is to convince, persuade. Every single person out there is an idiot, but collectively they're a genius."
"Money makes even bastards legitimate."
"I just made pictures I would've liked to see."
"Happiness is working with Jack Lemmon."
"I'd worship the ground you walked on if only you walked in a better neighborhood."
"Well, nobody's perfect."
"One's too many and a hundred's not enough."
"An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation."
"Develop a clean line of action for your leading character"
"The forest of Compiegne. Look at it. Like a kind grandmother dozing in her rocking chair. Old trees practicing curtsies in the wind because they still think Louis XIV is king."
"The Austrians are brilliant people. They made the world believe that Hitler was a German and Beethoven an Austrian."
"On Ernst Lubitsch: He could do more with a closed door than other directors could do with an open fly."
"[about the Hotel Marmont on Sunset Blvd., a piece of Hollywood history] I would rather sleep in a bathroom than in another hotel."
"I hate that word. It's return--a return to the millions of people who've never forgiven me for deserting the screen."
"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."
"You know, that stuff about pink elephants, that's the bunk. It's little animals. Little tiny turkeys in straw hats. Midget monkeys coming through the keyholes."
"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."
"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."