100 Quotes by John Sayles

I’ve always got five or six things that would either make a good feature or TV show. And you just never know. You go and you pitch and it may be exactly what they’re looking for, or they may stop you after two sentences and say, “Oh, we’ve already done something just like that.”

To this day, I get rewrite offers where they say: ‘We feel this script needs work with character, dialogue, plot and tone,’ and when you ask what’s left, they say: ‘Well, the typing is very good.’

The hardest thing about movies is doing take 12, 13, and 14, and finding new ways to do the same lines. So the early takes are actually easier and I think there’s more surprises in them.

Not that I’ve always loved the movie when they finally come out, or if they ever come out-because many of them don’t come out-but I’ve gotten to work with really good story editors and stuff like that.

I probably wouldn’t have done as many as I did in one year, which I did when I was trying to raise money.

I take more jobs when I need more money, if I’m investing in films. I take fewer when I don’t. Or if something really good comes along, I usually find a way to do a good job on it in the time that I’ve got.

It’s a mixed crowd at the dogs – black, white, hispanic – but to Walt they all look like Jackie Gleason. Heavyset guys with big plans and polyester souls.

If you write a movie for Roger Corman, it’s going to get made. You saw it almost the next day.

I remember being out here at the Sunset Marquis, and whoever knocked on the door, I would take that picture that I was writing and I would put that in the typewriter, so when I had the meeting, they would say: ‘Oh, you’re working on it right now?’