Bobbie Ann Mason Quotes

I'm not of the opinion that the next logical step for a book is for it to be made into a film.

Some things work better as a book, some things work better as a story, some things works better as a film.

There's no doubt that some of the greatest films ever made have come from the theater. It's all a matter of finding a way to make the theater experience watchable on film.

The script for 'Trainspotting' was amazing, and it was different from the book.

Story is the primary factor any day. If I believe that a particular director would do justice to it, I will accept an offer.

I love movies. Movies have influenced me as a writer.

Everyone in Hollywood wanted a role in this movie. Everyone wanted to have a part in it. I feel so lucky that I got one, but what I find so cool about 'Hunger Games' is that the real star is the story itself.

For any book, it's distilling all of the moments in the book that are either fan favorites or pivotal that you have to have in there, and how you tie that all up into a two hour movie is not the easiest job.

I've made seventeen or eighteen films now, only two of which have been original screenplays, all the others have been based on short stories or novels, and I find the long short story ideal for adaptation.

With anything, and especially with the pallet of viewers in watching anything on TV and film, you have to entertain them.

As filmmakers, we're constantly always looking for something to bring the audience deeper into the reality of the story we're telling.

Remember: TV is a format, film is a format, and books are a format.

There is a sort of theory that you should adapt bad books because they always make more successful films.

My first book, about Ruby Ridge, was made into a miniseries on CBS in 1996, and since then, I've dabbled in Hollywood, pitched a few things, sold a couple of screenplays and a pilot that I wrote with a buddy from Spokane, flirted with seeing 'Citizen Vince' as a film, and most recently, adapted 'The Financial Lives of the Poets' as a script.

We are not the originators of the story. I think it's actually the opposite when you're an actor. You're telling somebody else's story.

I'm all for whatever transitions the book properly to a movie.

Usually, I think, every film I've made has been a book, and I've always read it.

'The Homesman' is a really interesting movie that Tommy Lee Jones directed.

By the usual reckoning, the worst books make the best films.

Scripts are very different to books. They are blueprints for building, not the building.

Movies are not novels, and that's why, when filmmakers try to adapt novels, particularly long or complex novels, the result is almost always failure. It can't be done.

I'm used to adapting my novels for feature film - it can be challenging to cut and compress three or four hundred pages into two hours of dramatic action.

Connection is what one is after in probably most media, but certainly in film, which is an immersive medium.

I'd love to do another film version of 'Romeo & Juliet.' I'm not too picky as long as it's a good story.

One of the characteristics of plays that are made into films is that they can be very talky.