Top William Monahan Quotes

William Monahan Biography

William J. Monahan (born November 3, 1960) is an American screenwriter and novelist. His second produced screenplay was The Departed, a film that earned him a Writers Guild of America Award and Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

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William Monahan Quotes

I had a long writing history behind me before I got into anything in film. It comprehended science fiction, it comprehended historical, it comprehended, you know, just about everything that you can think of.

Fiction, Historical, History, Long, Thinking, Writing

When they see you get what you want and move on, quickly, you've done a contract with the crew from that point. In Britain if the sparks call you Guv on day two, you never need an award of any other kind.

Awards, Contract, Crew, Day, Moving, Two

I shoot very little film. If you just do coverage you're shooting any number of potential films instead of just one, and I was shooting just one specific film. Film is cheap but time is expensive.

Films, Littles, Numbers, Shoot, Shooting, Time

Saying directors don't write because they don't type is very wrong, it's like saying Dylan doesn't write music because he doesn't write notation.

Directors, Notation, Type, Write, Writing

Actors are players and if they're hot, or onto something, you let them go, or you and the actor can both get on to something. I always run out with lines as I think of them.

Actor, Onto, Player, Running, Think, Thinking

In Boston terms I was everyone and no one, with no social investment, no social insecurity, sort of Imitation of Christ in one hand and The Education of Henry Adams in the other, and because I was part of nothing I could observe everything without having anything personal invested in the findings.

Boston, Hands, Insecurity, Nothing, Personal, Sort

I don't trust a lot of popular films because they seem to indicate that people would like to be super-heroes or vampires, and that's the last thing I mean by the useful mirror of art.

Art, Hero, Indicate, Mean, Mirror, Popular

The novel ceases to be looked at as a novel. Such is the overwhelming power of motion pictures. Gore Vidal pointed out that the movies are the only thing anybody's really interested in. The association with movies and movie money can, and certainly did in my case, occlude a novel as a novel.

Association, Cases, Motion, Motion Pictures, Overwhelming, Pointed

The old days of screenwriting, and myths about screenwriting, are maybe over. It's a literary form, if you can wake up to it.

Form, Literary, Myth, Screenwriting, Wake, Wake Up

Star Wars was great at the beginning and crap at the end while Star Trek has always been interesting, and the difference is in the writing, and the thematic intentions.

Crap, Interesting, Stars, War, Wars, Writing

Refreshing honesty has been getting me in trouble since I was five, but it's probably had some positive effects - like not being a liar.

Honesty, Liars, Like, Refreshing, Trouble

As far as executing work is concerned, you do it all in order. You do it in contractual order. There's no overlap, it's just continuation of your ordinary work. You move from one project into another.

Executing, Move, Moving, Order, Ordinary, Project

Whatever you cut when there's no deadline isn't really a cut. You're just pushing colors around.

Color, Colors, Cut, Cutting, Deadline, Pushing

Dialogue is used to reveal not what we want to say, but what we are trying to hide.

Dialogue, Hide, Trying, Used, Want

I came into screenwriting from an odd direction, because the first screenplay that I read was and is better as writing than the top one percent of literary novels.

Direction, Firsts, Odd, Top, Writing

I think probably everybody works most on the beginning and the ending.

Beginning, Ending, Everybody, Probably, Think, Thinking

If you need someone to come out of the sewer with a wire you don't hire someone who needs laborious collective instruction. You let someone do his job, whether he's a focus puller or a surgeon.

Focus, Hire, Jobs, Surgeon, Wire

I don't think the latest Star Wars pictures have any artistic intentions, but the original picture opened up epic science fiction.

Epic, Fiction, Pictures, Star, Stars, War

For some reason, I seem to work well with actors. I love working with them.

Actors, Love, Reason, Wells, Work, Working

I have a lot of stuff that I never published because I always had a sense that novels were not finally going to be the way I made my living, because the form was dying commercially.

Dying, Published, Stuff, Way

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William Monahan Biography

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