Billy Wilder

An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation.

I'd worship the ground you walked on if only you walked in a better neighborhood.

If there's anything I hate more than not being taken seriously, it's being taken too seriously.

Happiness is working with Jack Lemmon.

It was hell at the time, but after it was over, it was wonderful.

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.

What critics call dirty in our pictures, they call lusty in foreign films.

France is the only country where the money falls apart and you cant tear the toilet paper.

One's too many, and a hundred's not enough.

Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.

I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut.

If there's anything I hate more than being taken seriously, it's being taken too seriously.

France is a place where the money falls apart in your hands but you cant tear the toilet paper.

Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own instead of someone elses.

If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you.

France is a place where the money falls apart in your hands but you can't tear the toilet paper.

My Aunt Minnie would always be punctual and never hold up production, but who would pay to see my Aunt Minnie?

He has Van Gogh's ear for music.

They've tried to manufacture other Marilyn Monroes and they will undoubtedly keep trying. But it won't work. She was an original.

Shoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award.

Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's.

I would rather sleep in a bathroom than in another hotel.

You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning.

Hollywood didn't kill Marilyn Monroe, it's the Marilyn Monroes who are killing Hollywood.

Hindsight is always twenty twenty.

France is the country where the money falls apart and you can't tear the toilet paper.

The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.

A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.

I've met a lot of hardboiled eggs in my time, but you're twenty minutes.

Don't be too clever for an audience. Make it obvious. Make the subtleties obvious also.

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.

We are on the track of something absolutely mediocre.