"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."

Billy Wilder Entertainment See all quotes by Billy Wilder →

React to this quote

More by Billy Wilder

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

“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.”

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

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

Resonant Thoughts

"Four factors are examined which can give rise to interesting types of social structure: labels, reputation, regulation, and territoriality. A label is a fixed characteristic of a player, such as sex o…"

— Robert Axelrod

Science1949–2019

#philosophy

"The campaign I’m donating my rotten face for is ‘Dead things should be buried, not eaten.’ Being a vegetarian, it kind of shows how gory it is to see ripped off arms and ripped off hands of people of …"

— Sharon Needles

Art1981

#philosophy

"You know, right now, the most important thing in my life is to make sure you understand that, first of all, I thank God I’m alive today, and I mean that. You see, I spent too many years of my life thi…"

— Stevie Ray Vaughan

Music1954–1990

#time