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Billy Wilder Quotes

Total quotes: 14
“Joe Gillis: I didn't know you were planning a comeback.

Norma Desmond: I hate that word. It's a return, a return to the millions of people who have never forgiven me for deserting the screen.”
— Norma Desmond, Sunset Boulevard
Tagged: Fame, Comeback, Return
“Audiences don't know somebody sits down and writes a picture; they think the actors make it up as they go along.”
— Joe Gillis, Sunset Boulevard
Tagged: screenwriters, audiences, actors
“Betty Schaefer: Don't you sometimes hate yourself?

Joe Gillis: Constantly.”
— Joe Gillis, Sunset Boulevard
Tagged: Self-hatred
“Betty Schaefer: I've been hoping to run into you.

Joe Gillis: What for? To recover that knife you stuck in my back?”
— Joe Gillis, Sunset Boulevard
Tagged: Betrayal, Backstabber
“You don't yell at a sleepwalker—he may fall and break his neck. That's it: She was still sleepwalking along the giddy heights of a lost career.”
— Joe Gillis, Sunset Boulevard
Tagged: Sleepwalking, faded glory
“So they were turning after all, those cameras. Life, which can be strangely merciful, had taken pity on Norma Desmond. The dream she had clung to so desperately had enfolded her.”
— Joe Gillis, Sunset Boulevard
Tagged: Cameras, Dreams
“The poor dope—he always wanted a pool. Well, in the end, he got himself a pool.”
— Joe Gillis, Sunset Boulevard
Tagged: dead, Swimming Pool, Irony
“I'm walking here! I'm walking here!”
— Ratso Rizzo, Midnight Cowboy
Tagged: Turf, Walking, obstruction
“We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!”
— Norma Desmond, Sunset Boulevard
Tagged: silent movies, dialogue, faces
“And I promise you I'll never desert you again because after Salome we'll make another picture and another picture. You see, this is my life! It always will be! Nothing else! Just us, and the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark!... All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.”
— Norma Desmond, Sunset Boulevard
Tagged: Fame, Delusion, cecil b. demille
“Well, this is where you came in, back at that pool again, the one I always wanted. It's dawn now and they must have photographed me a thousand times. Then they got a couple of pruning hooks from the garden and fished me out... ever so gently. Funny, how gentle people get with you once you're dead.”
— Joe Gillis, Sunset Boulevard
Tagged: pool boy, dead
“This is New Year's Eve. How about living it up a little?”
— Joe Gillis, Sunset Boulevard
Tagged: New Year's Eve
“Never ask a big man for a small favor.”
— Lieutenant Schwegler, Five Graves to Cairo
Tagged: Nazi Movies, Small Favor
“Joe Gillis: Wait a minute, haven't I seen you before? I know your face.

Norma Desmond: Get out! Or, shall I call my servant?

Joe Gillis: You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.

Norma Desmond: I am big. It's the pictures that got small.”
— Norma Desmond, Sunset Boulevard
Tagged: Fame, silent movies
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