Quotes from Whit Stillman

Characteristic of the overall difference between Boston and New York, the population at the Acropolis was far less forlorn. Its customers were just those who, for whatever reason, wanted to eat coffee-shop food at very strange hours.

If he held me in true regard he would not believe such insinuations in my disfavour. A worthy lover should assume one has unanswerable motives for all one does!" "Certainly—

That's the parent's lot! We bring these delightful creatures into the world—eagerly, happily—and then before long they are spying upon and judging us, rarely favourably. Having children is our fondest wish but, in doing so, we breed our acutest critics. It is a preposterous situation—but entirely of our own making." Susan

Here you seem to have won your aunt's affection; I think I served you well there, for I believe she would do anything to spite me.

their spinster amanuensis, the

has sadly deprived our language of many of the fertile and resonant words which the Englishman of prior centuries had at his disposal. "Argufy" is one such; the dictionary defines it as "to argue or quarrel, typically about something trivial." Certainly we have all seen occasions where innocuous subjects are "argufied"; an

The great thing for me is how Hitchcock uses guilt so well. He implicates the spectator in the character's field, and you really feel it, and there's incredible relief when it comes out right - if it does come out right.

The usual key to getting films made seems to be a producer's terrier-like determination not to let it go. Unfortunately, such producers often seem prone to sinking their claws into mediocre projects.

So much of selling a film in the industry is about creating a fulcrum where all the pressure comes to bear, and something seems suddenly valuable and approved by an audience. It's amazing how people could pick up tons of films on the cheap, but they don't because they wait until everything is laid out for them.

My family was entirely political, all the time, on the left. The opposite of that is not to be political on the right. It's trying not to be - politics is not everything. There's life other than politics. Politics intrudes.

Oscar Wilde was sort of my first love as a young reader. And then I went on to love Jane Austen's wonderful - this sort of comedy coming from her. I mean, all of her books are comic.

There's something really admirable about French culture and an attraction in how independent it is from our own. So, it's odd that in other countries that are very American-influenced - who seem to care more about the Oscars than anyone here does - there's both anti-Americanism and also too much America.

Coming out of college, back to New York, where I didn't really know that many people, I thought our world was very atomized.

I find it really disturbing to be watching a lot of the medium that I'm trying to work in. I prefer to be doing things that are farther away.

It's really important to have subjects that people all over the world are familiar with, and the Disney films are really great that way.

It's a challenge for any writer to write beyond what he knows. You get material, adapt it, and do the best you can with it.

You have to constantly work on your script if it needs it. You don't accept, 'Oh, I did a draft and...' No, it's your responsibility to work on the script as much as possible and make it better and better.