Shane Black Quotes

The hardest single thing you do is get the bloody screenplay right.

I always write the script by myself.

To make the script, you need ideas, and for me a lot of times, a final script is made up of many fragments of ideas that came at different times.

I always claim that the writer has done 90 percent of the director's work.

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

I do a lot of improvising when I'm writing, and I work very hard on the scripts... they are written very much in an actor-friendly way.

Actors can be good, say all these beautiful, wonderful things - but where does it come from? It comes from the writers, and people kind of forget that sometimes.

I would say, A, you can't really teach anyone how to write good characters, because it's something you have to teach yourself or already have innately in you as a storyteller, and, B, coming up with a good screenplay is a very, very small fraction of what it takes to be a good screenwriter.

I often attribute my screenwriting to journalism because they drill in the who, what, when, where and why - but we really need to land on that why. That's what I've been exploring in my writing for many years and trying to get better at.

I can't do a film if I don't start with the writing.

Writing a TV show is totally different than writing features, or just, what I started doing is writing features. You write a little bit more organically. You start from the beginning to the end, beginning, middle and end.

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

Oh, I had an idea for a pilot of my own at the time, and then Carl sent me about eight scripts and simply I threw my idea out the window because the writing was just so good.

Personally, I read a lot of scripts.

I think the community that's created within a writers' room is a very interesting topic.

I think writing is the most underrated thing in Hollywood.

The few times I've tried to write original screenplays, it's a difficult process because I just don't feel like I know the characters the way I know them after the year or two it takes to write a novel.

I didn't write 'Snow White' for any class, but I got bitten by the screenwriting bug and wrote a couple of scripts in my spare time instead of going to keg parties or something.

My father was a screenwriter, and I kind of grew up in that world. I always had a mind for characters and dialogue, and my head was filled with that stuff, so it seemed like a good place to start.

The strangest thing about writing a sitcom, is never knowing if it will become anything but words on a page.

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.

I find that screenwriting is at best kind of a hackwork in some ways.

I write in a pretty straightforward way. I kind of sit down at page one and start writing.

The success of the movie industry comes from the story. And the story comes from somebody putting something down on paper.

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.