Quotessence
Home / Authors / William Monahan Books
William Monahan

William Monahan Books

Screenwriter

No books found for this author.

Related Quotes

“I didn't have anything to do with selecting IFC. I don't have anything to do with distribution, or business, or marketing, but think it's a good choice by Graham, and perfect for London Boulevard. It gets the picture straight into a dialog with the public, and it doesn't set the sights too high. They're very hip at IFC, and they get the film. The cineplex hasn't done film any favors as an art form.”

ThinkingArtDoneFilmFormChoicesPerfectSightMarketingLondonFavorsHipsDistributionBoulevardGood Choices
Author:William Monahan
Create image

“I started out as a writer with an hour removed from Kingdom of Heaven. You have to make one print for the entire world, and that's something that influences the theatrical cuts of pictures to an enormous degree. It's a reality. You can't have one cut for the Sunni, and one for the Shia, and one each for Tories, Whigs, vegetarians, one cut for the Cineplex, and one for literary intellectuals.”

WorldRealityHeavenHoursCuttingInfluenceDegreesEnormousKingdomsPrintVegetarianTheatricalKingdom Of HeavenShia
Author:William Monahan
Create image

“I'm a huge fan of director's cuts or reassemblies if they're good, but I remember being really excited about the restored version of Apocalypse Now, and then I preferred the original film. Kingdom of Heaven as a director's cut is the real picture, but in fact someone recently told me that there was another cut, the original first cut, which he said was just extraordinary. I've never seen it - and of course now I want to, if it exists, and so would everybody else.”

IfsWantFirstsSaidRealFactsRememberFilmCoursesHeavenCuttingFansHugeDirectorsOriginalsExtraordinaryExcitedKingdomsVersionsBeing RealNow And ThenApocalypseKingdom Of Heaven
Author:William Monahan
Create image

“A criminal has a kind of freedom by definition that the ordinary citizen doesn't have. The criminal's able to realize himself in ways not available to the general population, if you want to put it that way. They're interesting and unpredictable. Characters always have to break some sort of bound or other to be interesting. It also helps if they're paradoxical.”

IfsWayWantKindCharacterHelpingAbleRealizingInterestingBreakCitizensOrdinaryBoundsPopulationDefinitionsAvailableCriminalsUnpredictableParadoxicalOrdinary Citizens
Author:William Monahan
Create image

“The novel may be dead as a commercial form. When art forms things die as commercial forms, something happens to the practice of those arts that isn't very pleasant. It used to be that a poet like Tennyson could keep his house and his coach-and-four and his staff of six servants on the income from poetry. That doesn't happen anymore.”

MayArtHappensFormUsedDiesHousePracticeNovelFourPoetSixCoachesThings HappenIncomeUsed To BeServantPleasantStaffTennyson
Author:William Monahan
Create image

“Poetry died as a commercial form and then it died as a serious art form. No one serious touches it. It used to be that somebody like F. Scott Fitzgerald could make a high middle-class income from working as a short story writer for the Saturday Evening Post and other outlets. That doesn't happen anymore. It used to be that a legitimate playwright could make a living on Broadway from writing decent plays.”

WritingArtPlayStoriesHappensFormUsedClassMiddleSeriousDiedIncomeUsed To BeEveningPostsDecentMiddle ClassShort StorySaturdayBroadwayOutletsPlaywrightLiving OnStory WritersScott FitzgeraldSaturday Evening
Author:William Monahan
Create image

“[Eugene] O'Neill made a living, certainly, at least. But each of these forms have sort of died the death in turn, and it's a simple fact of that universe that talent then migrates away from these forms, and then the amateurs get in, like lunatics in the ruins, sort of pretending to be artists. If you're ambitious enough to want to be a writer to begin with, you want to be a writer in some circumstances where there are rewards, where there's notice, where you don't have to be a teacher, and where you're frankly not nuts for wasting your time.”

IfsWantMadeEnoughFactsFormArtistTurnsUniverseSimpleTeacherTalentCircumstancesDiedRewardsRuinsPretendingNutsAmbitiousWasting Your TimeMigrateEugene O Neill
Author:William Monahan
Create image

“That's absolutely true, but one problem with the digital revolution, which may tie into what I said earlier, is that there can be a collapse of quality. You may not have liked the decisions made by publishers in the past, you may not have liked the decisions made by magazine editors or newspaper editors in the past. At least there was some quality control”

MayMadeSaidProblemPastDecisionQualityRevolutionNewspapersMagazinesTiesDigitalEditorsCollapsePublishersDecisions MadeDigital RevolutionQuality ControlNewspaper EditorsMagazine Editors
Author:William Monahan
Create image

“It's been very much in the blood since I started imagining films or shooting with 8mm when I was a kid. I made some films and thought about films, but then I went into writing. Becket is something that's definitely on the cards. We have to see where that fits in the schedule, because it's a big picture and I have a lot of writing obligations at the moment. I'm wary of anything with a budget over a certain amount.”

WritingMadeMomentsBigsKidsFilmCertainBloodAmountFitObligationCardsShootingBudgetsSchedulesBig Picture
Author:William Monahan
Create image

“I have a library room with four desks in it. On one of them is a spec, on one of them is a present work, on one of them is reading for a future work, on another desk is a novel I'm not doing until I'm a hundred and fifty, and things like that. But, contractually speaking, you just do one at a time when it's on and paid and live. You do your real day on one project and the rest is just literary life. Or intrusions.”

RealReadingRoomsNovelFourProjectsHundredPaidLibraryFiftyDesksIntrusionSpecsFuture Work
Author:William Monahan
Create image

“The era I love most is the Federal period, just after the Revolution and the formation of the United States. The birth of America as a nation coincided with the Romantic era and I've always been thoroughly into the Romantics and I've always been thoroughly into America, particularly at the time when it was a brand new idea, when it was something brand new in the world. It was a very exciting time in the world because of the birth of America”

WorldIdeasStatesAmericaNationsUnitedUnited StatesRevolutionBirthPeriodsExcitingBrandsErasNew IdeasFormationBrand New
Author:William Monahan
Create image