35 Quotes by Michael Arndt

In terms of writing characters or stories, at least initially, there's no difference between live-action and animation. A good story is a good story, whatever the medium.

You never want your second act or the whole movie to just be this relentless march towards its goal. You want things to take the audience by surprise.

The number one metaphor I have in my mind for writing a screenplay is that...you're trying to climb a mountain blindfolded. And the funny thing about that is, you think, 'Okay, that's hard because you're climbing up a rock face, and you don't know where you're going, and you don't know where the top is, you can't see what's below you...' But actually the hardest part about climbing a mountain blindfolded is just finding the mountain.

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

Good writing is deceptive in that it hides its own artifice – it makes it seem easy.

Adversity challenges the masks we hide behind, revealing sides of ourselves we have not yet comfortably with the world outside. It is why we dislike adversity, because we have to face what we don’t yet understand about ourselves.

In terms of writing characters or stories, at least initially, there’s no difference between live-action and animation. A good story is a good story, whatever the medium.

If you only know something one way, then you don’t really know it.