William Boyd Quotes

Getting your screenplay right is the most important thing you'll ever do on your film.

So with 'There Will Be Blood,' I didn't even really feel like I was adapting a book. I was just desperate to find stuff to write.

And it is a folly to try to craft a novel for the screen, to write a novel with a screen contract in mind.

I have stories that I'd like to maybe one day consider directing, but you need a lot of time to write and put it together.

I like films to be complete in their written form.

It slightly depends on your perspective, sort of how you look at these things, but when I sit down to write a script, I'm not planning to write a script; I'm planning to make a film, and so I only see the script as being just a step there.

I want to write a film. I need to think of the right idea and focus on that; I love writing.

I take time to write my script, if I have more scripts, I will make more movies.

Eventually, I would love to direct, but not anytime soon. I just love the storytelling aspect.

As a writer, I think about films I work on in a traditional Hollywood kind of a way. I'm curious to see how it translates.

Yeah, I'd love to write a film, that'd be great.

The secret of making movies is having the strongest possible script.

I think I came to film-making through writing. I started to write, and people, teachers, responded to my writing.

I wasn't trained as a writer-director. And the projects I write are difficult to finish.

I haven't really tried to write a movie. It's tough to get into that mode.

I have a lot of incomplete short films and incomplete scripts out there.

The script for 'Thirteen' is tight, and not because of the now-famous six day writing spree, but more because it started out as 15 pages longer.

There are no great scripts - just great films.

I like writing for movies. It's nice to be alone working on fiction in your room, and then it's nice to be in a room with a bunch of people working on a movie.

Ensure that your script is watertight. If it's not on the page, it will never magically appear on the screen.

I want to make my own films from my own scripts based on stories I want to tell, but they take time to put together.

I had written a script called 'Freed,' which I had wanted to direct.

I write scripts to serve as skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images.

Spike optioned my first book, 'Now the Hell Will Start,' and he trusted me to write the screenplay, too. That was an awesome learning experience - I grew up watching Spike's movies, and here he was giving me handwritten notes about structure and dialogue. His feedback taught me so much about how to craft a cinematic narrative.

I got a job as an assistant film editor, which lasted for a few years, but I found writing incredibly difficult, and I thought, 'How am I going to make a film if I can't write?' I didn't really comprehend that someone else would do that bit.