Frasi di Billy Wilder

“Non so, quando realizzo un film non lo classifico mai, non dico è una commedia, aspetto l'anteprima, se il pubblico ride molto dico è una commedia o un film serio o un film noir. All'epoca non ho mai sentito espressioni simili, mi sono limitato a fare film che mi sarebbe piaciuto vedere, e se ero fortunato questo coincideva con i gusti del pubblico.”

“Il problema vero è che oggi non ci sono più i grandi attori di una volta. Dove sono i Gable, i Gary Cooper, gli Spencer Tracy?”

“Anch'io rimarrei turbato, sapete, se ci fossero ventimila persone che guardano la gonna di mia moglie svolazzarle sopra la testa.”

“Quella non era solo difficile, era impossibile.”

“Un tempo, se la convocavi alle nove di mattina compariva regolarmente a mezzogiorno. Adesso la convochi a maggio e si presenta a ottobre.”

“Era spaventata e insicura. Mi sarebbe piaciuto essere uno psicoanalista che l'avesse come paziente. Forse non avrei saputo aiutarla, ma sdraiata sul lettino sarebbe stata deliziosa.”

“Come lei non ce ne sarà mai un'altra, e Dio sa quante imitatrici ha avuto.”

“Laughton sapeva frugare nel suo talento come un bambino felice in uno scatolone rigurgitante di balocchi.”

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

“Anyone who doesn't believe in miracles isn't a realist.”

“I’ve met a lot of hardboiled eggs in my time, but you’re twenty minutes!”

“What critics call dirty in our movies, they call lusty in foreign films.”

“A bad play folds and is forgotten, but in pictures we don't bury our dead.”

“I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore.”

“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.”

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

“The Austrians have completed the feat of turning Beethoven into an Austrian, and Hitler into a German.”

“Eighty percent of a picture is writing, the other twenty percent is the execution, such as having the camera on the right spot and being able to afford to have good actors in all parts.”

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

“I just made pictures I would've liked to see.”

“Of course, there must be subtleties. Just make sure you make them obvious.”

“I’d worship the ground you walked on if only you walked in a better neighborhood.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“No good deed goes unpunished.”

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

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

“France is the only country where the money falls apart and you can’t tear the toilet paper.”

“I was the only director who ever made two pictures with Marilyn Monroe. Forget the Oscar,
I deserve the Purple Heart.”