Billy Wilder quotes - page 2

Anyone who doesn't believe in miracles isn't a realist. (Billy Wilder)
I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. View quote
Billy Wilder
People copy, people steal. Most of the pictures they make nowadays are loaded down with special effects. I couldn't do that. I quit smoking because I couldn't reload my Zippo. View quote
Billy Wilder
If you don't like what you're doing, it's unlikely anyone else will either, so be sure you are happy with your own work first. View quote
Billy Wilder
No good deed goes unpunished. View quote
Billy Wilder
Hollywood didn't kill Marilyn Monroe, it's the Marilyn Monroes who are killing Hollywood. View quote
Billy Wilder
They've tried to manufacture other Marilyn Monroes and they will undoubtedly keep trying. But it won't work. She was an original. View quote
Billy Wilder
The Austrians are brilliant people. They made the world believe that Hitler was a German and Beethoven an Austrian. View quote
Billy Wilder
I never overestimate the audience, nor do I underestimate them. I just have a very rational idea as to who we're dealing with, and that we're not making a picture for Harvard Law School, we're making a picture for middle-class people, the people that you see on the subway, or the people that you see in a restaurant. Just normal people. View quote
Billy Wilder
A bad play folds and is forgotten, but in pictures we don't bury our dead. When you think it's out of your system, your daughter sees it on television and says, My father is an idiot. View quote
Billy Wilder
I don't go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons. (Billy Wilder)
I was the only director who ever made two pictures with Marilyn Monroe. Forget the Oscar, I deserve the Purple Heart. View quote
Billy Wilder
A bad play folds and is forgotten, but in pictures we don't bury our dead. View quote
Billy Wilder
Of course, there must be subtleties. Just make sure you make them obvious. View quote
Billy Wilder
I would rather sleep in a bathroom than in another hotel. View quote
Billy Wilder
It was hell at the time, but after it was over, it was wonderful. View quote
Billy Wilder
The best director is the one you don't see. View quote
Billy Wilder
I, you know, am all over the place -- every category of pictures I have made, good, bad or indifferent. I could not make, like Hitchcock did, one Hitchcock picture after another. . . . I wanted to do a Hitchcock picture, so I did Witness for the Prosecution, then I was bored with it, so I moved on. View quote
Billy Wilder