Sidney Sheldon Quotes

I've been a screenwriter for twenty-five years. Every one of my books have been optioned for movies and I have written a few of those screenplays.

Fortunately, John Houseman is a marvelous writer and he sat in on so many story conferences. He worked with Welles, you know, and he's a marvelous man.

The most despised sector of Hollywood are the writers. A good writer is quickly promoted to a 'concept man' - and then a producer - because he's too valuable to simply be a writer.

I started off writing TV adverts. I saw those as rehearsals for a feature film.

I've written about 15 screenplays and they all sold - they were all sold on pitches.

When I graduated college I needed to make money while I was pursuing acting, so I read screenplays and made a living writing coverage on them for studios.

I'm not sitting around thinking of ideas for TV shows.

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

But the longer I'm in the business, you see a lot of times these screenplays have been rewritten 5 times and you're not really offending an author.

I've never had to pitch a movie to a studio. I usually just let people read the script, then I cast it. I always think pitching is for baseball.

'Hardware' came about because I had written quite a few scripts and hadn't had any luck getting them made.

'The Full Monty' was my first feature script, and I wasn't that skilled at it.

I didn't have a burning desire to be a writer or director - writer probably more so, certainly not a director.

You never know where your next movie is going to come from. You just have to fall in love with something because it's going to be taking up every moment of spare time in your life for about two years. You're going to be dreaming about it and thinking about it and becoming obsessed with it.

A producer friend of mine from film school had read some of my early screenplays - some experiments I had done to see how fast I could write something.

'Pitch Perfect' was my first screenplay, so it was like my little baby.

Whenever I hear the narration for a new film, I have this process back home where my mother reads all my scripts.

I get so many scripts a day but none of them inspires me. If I get a good inspiring script, then I will be most happy to make it into a film.

I started writing screenplays myself and eventually directing.

I started out working as a script editor and storyliner.

Usually with me, the ideas I have for movies just sort of pop into my head. I've read a bunch of screenwriting books over the years and, to be honest, they're mostly pretty crappy.

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.

Since my adaptation of Ian McEwan's 'Atonement,' I get sent a lot of novels that people think will work as movies. So every now and then I make a point of sitting down and reading a couple of them.

I wrote 'All is Lost' while editing 'Margin Call'. I did that long before I knew if I was ever going to get to make another movie.

I think most Hollywood meetings are silly and I truly despise pitching. It's insane to expect someone to come in and tell you the story before they've written it, and buying an idea from someone who can explain it rather than write it is like choosing a mechanic based on his ability to draw a picture of your car's problem.