What's your favourite inspirational quote about screenwriting

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or writiing for that matter?Richard

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$nhm$(Email Removed):
[nq:1]or writiing for that matter?[/nq]
I was caddying for the Dalai Lama one day, and you know what he told me? "Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-galunga."
I have it taped up on my monitor to this day.
jaybee

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"You'll never amount to anything, get a real job!" - my parents.

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You don't join the NHL when you can't skate. So don't think you can write a movie just because you can type words.

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I used to have "Simplify and add more lightness" above my monitor. It's a quote from an aeroplane designer,. though I couldn't tell you which one, nor where I found it.
Bert
http://www.bertcoules.co.uk

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[nq:1]or writiing for that matter? Richard[/nq]
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig."

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[nq:1]I used to have "Simplify and add more lightness" above my monitor. It's a quote from an aeroplane designer,. though I couldn't tell you which one, nor where I found it.[/nq]
My faves:
"We don't have any notes on Draft 1. As far as we're concerned it's Final. Send us your invoice."
(This actually happened on the very first paying gig I had as a Screenwriter, so naturally I thought it was the norm. iT's never happened since).
"We just got a residual cheque in for you, It's rather large, so maybe you'd prefer to come in and pick it up in person."

"Your agent is a *** pain in the ***. But... well. OK. We agree to your terms."
"They've given you sole credit. There isn't going to be an arbitration."

"The show's been renewed. Are you free?"

"Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals." John Steinbeck

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[nq:1]or writiing for that matter?[/nq]
Many people hear voices when no-one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Other are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. (Margaret Chittenden)

Dena Jo
Email goes to denajo2 at the dot com variation of the Yahoo domain.

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[nq:1]Many people hear voices when no-one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day.[/nq]
And others like that are still running loose, commandeering newsgroups and signing all their pilfered posts with the name JAI.

But as far as favorite quotes, I agree with the one Dano had listed yesterday from Moliere. The one about writing being like prostitution. In fact (seriously) I've had that one hanging on the wall by my desk for years...along with a picture of one my favorite prostitutes. No wait, that picture is of the mother of my kids. Ah, same difference. (Can you tell we're divorced?)

Three of my favorite inspirational writing quotes (also close by my desk) are:
"Always grab the reader by the throat in the first paragraph, sink your thumbs into his windpipe in the second, and hold him against the wall until the tag line.?
Paul O?Neil
"What I adore is supreme professionalism. I?m bored by writers who can write only when it is raining."
Noel Coward
"You can?t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."
Jack London
And three of my favorite writer quotes that aren't exactly inspirational are:
"I hate writing, but I love having written."
Dorothy Parker
"Everywhere I go, I?m asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don?t stifle enough of them." Flannery O?Conner
"I am a Hollywood writer, so I put on a sports jacket and take off my brain."
Ben Hecht
But my absolute favorite, writer-oriented quote actually came from my own son (now ten) when he was almost seven years old.

I've always had some quotes tacked to the wall in my office. One day, my then seven-year-old notices a quote that had been on my wall for a number of years, but I guess he had never paid attention to it before.
The quote was: "The pen is mightier than the sword."

He looks at the quote, ponders it for a moment, ***** his head to one side, and while looking like the RCA dog staring into that old gramophone, he says "Dad, how is the ***** mightier than the sword?"

True story.
Dean

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Things are always cooking in the back of my mind or in the back of a drawer. There is never a day I don't write something. It's not tough to make a picture. It's tough to make a deal.
Billy Wilder, 1988, at age 82

If the public judges the movie people by some of the interviews that appear in print, they must wonder how they ever kept out of the asylum.

Will Rogers

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Mine is: "Creative thinking today is the most prized profit producing possession for any individual, corporation or country. It has the capacity to change you, your business and the world. " Robert P. Crawford
perila

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