Quotes by William Monahan

William Monahan

[Eugene] O’Neill made a living, certainly, at least. But each of these forms have sort of died the death in turn, and it’s a simple fact of that universe that talent then migrates away from these forms, and then the amateurs get in, like lunatics in the ruins, sort of pretending to be artists. If you’re ambitious enough to want to be a writer to begin with, you want to be a writer in some circumstances where there are rewards, where there’s notice, where you don’t have to be a teacher, and where you’re frankly not nuts for wasting your time.

Artist

Simple

Teacher

A criminal has a kind of freedom by definition that the ordinary citizen doesn’t have. The criminal’s able to realize himself in ways not available to the general population, if you want to put it that way. They’re interesting and unpredictable. Characters always have to break some sort of bound or other to be interesting. It also helps if they’re paradoxical.

Character

Criminals

Interesting

A writer is a performer as well. A writer isn’t the literary department. That gets tried on but nothing’s a script unless a good writer goes away and does his thing alone.

Doe

Scripts

Wells

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.

Player

Running

Thinking

All of a sudden I pulled up short and harked back to Ridley [Scott] holding up the script in Manhattan, at the St. Regis breakfast room, and saying, “It’s very visual, isn’t it,” and realized it was the key to my whole life since then.

Breakfast

Keys

Manhattan

As a director, you’re given a tremendous apparatus to work with, and very great talents are available to you.

Directors

Given

Talent

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.

Moving

Order

Ordinary

Because you’re running an enterprise with two hundred-odd people, and it’s really your responsibility to keep it moving quickly. So you have to know what you’re doing, do it, and move on.

Moving

Responsibility

Running

By the time someone gave me some samples of standard screenplays I was already beyond that stuff, because I was not only a tinkerer in ways to do things, I’d started from Dylan Thomas. As a screen dramatist he was a very intense visualist, with great timing and fluency.

Fluency

Stuff

Way

Casting is all about availability, as much as anything else.

Availability

Casting

Follow The Behaviour University in order to get the greatest quotes from the greatest people of all time so that you can tap into your own greatness.

Actors

America

Answers

Anxiety

Art

Artist

Attention

Availability

Balls

Believe

Blow

Book

Boston

Boys

Breakfast

Bridges

Care

Casting

Character

Circles

Class

Criminals

Cutting

Darkness

Degrees

Directors

Doe

Done

Drama

Dying

Factories

Facts

Feelings

Film

Firsts

Fit

Fluency

Focus

Form

Four

Gambling

Games

Given

Growing Up

Hands

Hats

Heaven

Hollywood

Humans

I'm Tired

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

Tool

The Behaviour Diary

Tool

The Dating Diary

Tool

The Relationship Therapist

Tool

Quotes by William Monahan

William Monahan

A writer is a performer as well. A writer isn’t the literary department. That gets tried on but nothing’s a script unless a good writer goes away and does his thing alone.

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.

All of a sudden I pulled up short and harked back to Ridley [Scott] holding up the script in Manhattan, at the St. Regis breakfast room, and saying, “It’s very visual, isn’t it,” and realized it was the key to my whole life since then.

As a director, you’re given a tremendous apparatus to work with, and very great talents are available to you.

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.

Because you’re running an enterprise with two hundred-odd people, and it’s really your responsibility to keep it moving quickly. So you have to know what you’re doing, do it, and move on.

By the time someone gave me some samples of standard screenplays I was already beyond that stuff, because I was not only a tinkerer in ways to do things, I’d started from Dylan Thomas. As a screen dramatist he was a very intense visualist, with great timing and fluency.

Casting is all about availability, as much as anything else.

Get Social with TBU

Topics by William Monahan

Popular Tools

The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

Menu

Menu