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" One of the downsides of money is if there's no money, there are very few real jerks who are attached to your project. And if there is money, you do attract some very difficult, unhelpful people. "

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" I think when my parents were together, my family was too prosperous for our psychological health. Not that they were that rich, but I feel that usually inherited wealth causes psychological problems. "

Whit Stillman

Think

Health

Parents

" I have to embrace the fact people find me divisive, but I find it remarkable. I was very disturbed by the hatred 'Damsels in Distress' received. "

Whit Stillman

Find

People

" I remember when I was trying to do 'Metropolitan,' in breaks I would read a page of two of Jane Austen as a palate-cleanser. "

" 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. "

Whit Stillman

Determination

Seem

" I like to allow a story to arise as I'm writing scripts. I find it horrible when I try to think of something for the plot without really being on the ground and seeing where it goes. "

" I've gotten to really, really like being back in the States. It's so easy being in your own country, and I really like Americans - typical American towns and provincial college towns are my ideal place to be. "

" Before, I was writing a script to make a movie. At a certain point, I became A Writer in Film and Television. So I got TV deals to write stuff, film deals to write stuff. But it's dangerous. I got into the WGA, and I became kind of, you know, a slave! They just pay you to write a script, and it's hard to make the movies. "

" I'm not sure what my material would have been if I'd have started earlier. I probably would have started with 'Damsels in Distress' kinds of films because that's the kind of comedy I was writing in college. So I didn't really have any life experience to work off of. "

" I like things that are sort of comic and humorous rather than satirical. "

" At the New York Harvard Club, they've moved the memorial for those who died in World Wars I and II up to an obscure little hallway; they used to be in the main hall, in the most prominent location. The sacrifice of those young people I always found so stunning and so admirable. "

" If you're sort of interested in politics but sort of upset about contemporary politics, it's kind of wonderful to read about periods who were very eloquent and admirable - generally. People are articulating ideas you can sympathize with or understand both sides of. Or at least feel like one side is saying the right things. "

" I think that, in terms of mainstream storytelling, the rebel gets off way too easy. We're way too hard on the insiders and way too soft on the outsiders. "

" There are bad preppies and bad priests and bad humanitarians. Any group can have its bad apple. "

" A brief experience with a Radcliffe girl got very bad very quickly. I was so destroyed by it that I left and went to Mexico for a semester, where I have cousins. I learned how to speak Spanish, which was really important for my life. It was wonderful going to Mexico, learning another culture and a language. "

" In Mexico, wealth and poverty live next to each other and are cordial with each other - in my experience. "

Whit Stillman

Experience

Live

" I kind of put people from the past up on a pedestal; I don't think, in a lot of ways, that we're at their level. "

" My whole career, only one person has stepped up to back me. All these people say they like your films. They say this and they say that, but no one actually does anything. "

Whit Stillman

Say

People

" I'm very troubled when editors oblige their film critics to read the novel before they see the film. Reading the book right before you see the film will almost certainly ruin the film for you. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I remember trying to write at 1, 1:30 A.M., and just sort of falling asleep. And I think that was actually a good creative state for weird ideas. I shifted to a morning schedule once I had two kids, and I still found that if I slept badly, I actually had better ideas. "

" When you're trying to force things in a script, it seems like it's getting somewhere, but it isn't real or interesting. All the bad material you've written becomes an albatross around your neck. So I really don't like writing a lot of bad stuff, I prefer to just keep narrowing it down to stuff I think is solid. "

" What frustrates me a lot about some aspects of filmmaking is people thinking everyone is really dumb and that we have to make everything really obvious. "

Whit Stillman

Thinking

People

" Really, having a show freely available online is like having your book in the library. It's wonderful; it's ideal. "

Whit Stillman

Book

Library

" So much of artistic creation is just exclusion. It's not creating things; it's just excluding things that really aren't going to be helpful. "

" The worst thing is the blank page at the start. Then the horrible things written on the blank page. Then deciding whether or not to throw out those horrible things: lame scenes, lame characters, bad ideas. "

" There's the right person, or right people, for each other. There is that order that's searching to be found but, I think, it's not as if everything is going to be automatic. So, people could really be meant for each other and its goes awry; or they could have to learn or develop and grow up together. Grow to be right together. "

" I'm totally devoted to '30s cinema. "

" 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. "