Billy Wilder Quotes


"A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard."
- Billy Wilder
"An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Actor, Nothing)

"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
(Related: Genius, May, Wrong)

"Don't be too clever for an audience. Make it obvious. Make the subtleties obvious also."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Obvious)

"France is a place where the money falls apart in your hands but you can't tear the toilet paper."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Money, France)

"France is the country where the money falls apart and you can't tear the toilet paper."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Money, Country, France)

"Happiness is working with Jack Lemmon."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Happiness)

"My Aunt Minnie would always be punctual and never hold up production, but who would pay to see my Aunt Minnie?"
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Production)

"Hindsight is always twenty-twenty."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Hindsight)

"It was hell at the time, but after it was over, it was wonderful."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Time, Hell)

"I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: First, Right)

"I would rather sleep in a bathroom than in another hotel."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Sleep)

"I'd worship the ground you walked on if only you walked in a better neighborhood."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Worship)

"I've met a lot of hardboiled eggs in my time, but you're twenty minutes."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Time)

"If there's anything I hate more than being taken seriously, it's being taken too seriously."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Being, Hate)

"If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Funny, Truth, People)

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Music)

"What critics call dirty in our pictures, they call lusty in foreign films."
- Billy Wilder
"Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Trust, Instinct, Mistakes)

"You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Dream)

"We are on the track of something absolutely mediocre."
- Billy Wilder
"Shoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Film, Focus, Want)

"One's too many, and a hundred's not enough."
- Billy Wilder
"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."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Man, Nothing, Now)

"They've tried to manufacture other Marilyn Monroes and they will undoubtedly keep trying. But it won't work. She was an original."
- Billy Wilder
(Related: Work, Trying, Will)