Jonathan Demme Quotes

Omit needless words.

Through an arbitrary problem, I had arrived at a tenet of good writing: brevity wins.

Writing for children is murder. A chapter has to be boiled down to a paragraph. Every word has to count.

I think in most cases, unless you're writing about a character who is garrulous, you say what you've got to say and then get out. Those little conjunctions, those little turnaround words help you do it. That's the way I like to write: I get rid of things rather than add them.

I think it's a lot easier to put together a reality show than to actually create a scripted show.

Hard writing makes easy reading.

Let's put it this way: if you are a novelist, I think you start out with a 20 word idea, and you work at it and you wind up with a 200,000 word novel. We, picture-book people, or at least I, start out with 200,000 words and I reduce it to 20.

Less really is more. It's a tendency of beginning writers to want to prove what they're talking about by going too far with description. I think you've got to keep it short, crisp and clean.

I'm a filmmaker; I want to make films. I don't want to sit in a hotel room waiting to make films, and I can control my thing in Denmark; I can make the film I want to make... of course, I have to write a good script, all that, but if I do my job, it will happen.

Anyone can make an article longer; the skill is keeping it tight and lean.

My writing tends to become very dense, so I have to keep some cushion. Sometimes, words that seem superfluous are actually essential for the overall effect.

Writing scripts is a laborious job that can be a real pain.

There's nothing more important in making movies than the screenplay.

There are times when I'm driving home after a day's shooting, thinking to myself, That scene would've been so much better if I had written it out.

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

Good writing is everything.

I type most of my books for the first chapter or two - I use a manual typewriter for the first 50 pages or so - and then I move to the computer. It helps me keep the work lean so I don't end up spending 10 pages describing a leaf.

I don't watch many films. I just make sure my directors are really good. I will work even with a debut director, but the one-hour narration of the script should be mind-blowing.

I went to journalism school, so sometimes writing the script of 'Being Mary Jane' is me putting my journalism hat on.

I like scripts. I spend a lot of time writing them.

Adverbs lead to overwriting. Try taking them out and reading your prose again to see how it sounds. Simple and less words are more powerful.

No matter what strategies you make, if you don't get the right script, everything is going to go down.

It is extremely satisfying when you finish a script, but the process of it can be just nerve-wracking.

Moviemaking is just really neat, and I really like doing that. I'd like to get into it more, but in terms of my role in all of this and in terms of the gift that God has given me, I had to come to the conclusion that my strength is as a storyteller, creating the story.

I am a stickler for damn good writing.