Quotes by Billy Wilder

About Billy Wilder:

Billy Wilder is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age. Wilder is one of only five people to have won Academy Awards as producer, director and screenwriter for the same film (The Apartment), and was the first person to accomplish this.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

Billy Wilder

Jerry: Oh, you don't understand, Osgood! Ehhhh... I'm a man. Osgood: Well, nobody's perfect.

Billy Wilder

I mean, it's just sex. It's simple biology, right? You build up tension and stress-- you need to open a valve somewhere and let it out, or you'll explode. Nothing deep and emotional about it, just a bodily function. Like sneezing.' 'Sure,' Kane said,...

Billy Wilder

The best director is the one you don't see.

Billy Wilder

Happiness is working with Jack Lemmon.

Billy Wilder

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

Billy Wilder

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

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

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

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

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

Billy Wilder

We are on the track of something absolutely mediocre.

Billy Wilder

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

Billy Wilder

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

Billy Wilder

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

Billy Wilder

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

Billy Wilder

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

Billy Wilder

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

Billy Wilder

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

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

Billy Wilder

Author Bio

  • NameBilly Wilder
  • DescriptionAmerican filmmaker
  • BornJune 22, 1906
  • DiedMarch 27, 2002
  • CountryUnited States Of America; Austria
  • ProfessionScreenwriter; Film Director; Film Producer; Writer; Journalist
  • AwardsAcademy Award For Best Writing (Original Screenplay); Academy Award For Best Director; Grand Cross Of The Order Of Merit Of The Federal Republic Of Germany With Star; Great Golden Medal Of Honour For Services To The Republic Of Austria; National Medal Of Arts; Directors Guild Of America Award