Tony Gilroy

“The writing is really hard. You're alone. It really pulls it out of you. You pull it out of your head. But when you're a director, you're shopping - you're picking this actor, you're picking this scene. It's like the most intense kinetic high-speed shopping of all time. You sit in a chair and it will all come rushing at you like a wind tunnel.”

“I have written a bunch of scripts that have not gotten produced, much more so early in my career than later.”

“I love the idea of spies in love. How would it work between two people who were so programmed to lie and be suspicious, who have a whole life based on pretence?”

“Developing films with directors, developing films with actors, is a poor percentage play for a screenwriter.”

“No one should feel sorry for a successful screenwriter.”

“Once a film costs a certain amount of money, things have to round off.”

“I can't imagine directing from someone else's script.”

“I think what I've recognized over the years is that I'm very, very bingey, extremely bingey when it comes to writing.”

“I used to be, when I was young, I used to be extremely regular and very organized.”

“I worked for a lot of directors.”

“I've never taken a job on anything I didn't want to do.”

“I don't remember writing anything until I wrote my college application.”

“You can't teach someone to be imaginative.”

“Different people work different ways.”

“I spend a lot of time in a sort of free state when I'm writing in the beginning and sketching.”

“I never really like it when other writers talk about coming in behind people and rewriting.”

“I like emotions, but I really don't like sentimentality, and I don't like when things break their spell.”

“I'm trained to button scenes and round things off, and I get rewarded for doing that.”

“Corporations are like countries now, there's a king, there are serfs, there's a court, basically everything but moats. They're feudal societies, and there are good ones and bad ones.”

“I like knowing where I am in action sequences if I'm supposed to.”