John Ridley Quotes

You use simple brushstrokes in a screenplay for things over which you would take much greater pains in a novel.

When I first read the script a few years ago I thought it was one of the best written scripts I had ever read.

The job of the screenplay is to identify and extract the essence of the story from the novel and reconfigure it for the screen, maintaining its essence in a different vehicle.

When I write a screenplay - and I think this is true for a lot of people - you direct the movie. That's what writing a screenplay is.

I've only ever taken a playwriting class, but I like creative writing and writing screenplays.

Anybody can write a film script 'cuz it has been reduced to a formula.

When writing screenplays, it's a matter of remembering to leave off the page anything and everything that doesn't appear on the screen.

The fundamental difficulty that most novelists face when they are trying to adapt their own book into a screenplay is realizing that a screenplay is a completely different way of storytelling, and it has limitations.

It's a lot easier to act when the writing is good. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to figure out 'Well, why did I say this next?'

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

I've come to find more satisfaction and enjoyment in writing screenplays over the years because that's what I do primarily now.

Whenever you write script without a director, you put in things that point toward a style in which the story will be told, a subjective style.

I try to write cinematically. Let me define what I mean by that. First of all, I try to write in a visual way so that the reader can watch a movie in their head. And it keeps moving. I try to structure the stories like a screenplay may be structured.

I definitely have the screenwriting itch.

I've done a lot of ad films where an idea can be translated in 30 or 40 seconds. But in a movie, an idea needs to be stretched for two hours, and requires you to draw a bit from your experiences in life.

How can you turn down Marks and Gran? Their scripts are so rich in texture.

I have no problems or issues with screenwriting in general.

The elegance of a really good screenplay, I admire it. I can't do it.

To combine telling an interesting story with brilliantly written characters is the most difficult thing to do.

A good script makes our job a lot easier.

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

'Safe' was a script that I read and flipped out for.

Writing a great script - not just a good one, but a great one - is almost an impossible task.

I always find the first thing that really bothers me when I start a screenplay is, I have to find a different form. You can't follow the form of the novel. It's a different thing completely. It's impossible. You just somehow have to find a structure for the whole thing. You have to crack that.

It's fun to improvise, but I still think it's better to have a great script, you know, like a Charlie Kaufman script.