Joseph L. Mankiewicz quotes

Every screenwriter worthy of the name has already directed his film when he has written his script. (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)

I got a job at Metro and went in to see Louis Mayer, who told me he wanted me to be a producer. I said I wanted to write and direct. He said, "No, you have to produce first, you have to crawl before you can walk." Which is as good a definition of producing as I ever heard.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

I've been in on the beginning, the rise, peak, collapse and end of the talking picture.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

All playwrights should be dead for three hundred years.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

There's nothing as real as money.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

The difference between life and the movies is that a script has to make sense, and life doesn't.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

I have a lot to be sad about. Not bitter in any way. But I think it can be fairly said that I've been in on the beginning, the rise, peak, collapse and end of the talking picture.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Funny business, a woman's career: the things you drop on the way up the ladder so you can move faster. You forget you'll need them again when you get back to being a woman. It's one career all females have in common, whether we like it or not: being a woman. Sooner or later, we've got to work at it, no matter how many other careers we've had or wanted.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

I'm a schoolteacher. That's even worse than being an intellectual. Schoolteachers are not only comic, they're often cold and hungry in this richest land on earth.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz