After so many drive-in waitresses becoming movie stars, there has been this real drought, when along come class; somebody who actually went to school, can spell, maybe even plays the piano. She may be a wispy, thin little thing, but when you see that girl, you know you're really in the presence of something. In that league there's only ever been Garbo, and the other Hepburn, and maybe Bergman. It's a rare quality, but boy, do you know when you've found it.
Billy WilderEver notice how these European trains always smell of eau de cologne and hard boiled eggs?
Billy WilderThey've tried to manufacture other Marilyn Monroes and they will undoubtedly keep trying. But it won't work. She was an original.
Billy WilderAh, Marilyn, Hollywood's Joan of Arc, our Ultimate Sacrificial Lamb. Well, let me tell you, she was mean, terribly mean. The meanest woman I have ever known in this town. I am appalled by this Marilyn Monroe cult. Perhaps it's getting to be an act of courage to say the truth about her. Well, let me be courageous. I have never met anyone as utterly mean as Marilyn Monroe. Nor as utterly fabulous on the screen, and that includes Garbo.
Billy WilderYou know, that stuff about pink elephants, that's the bunk. It's little animals. Little tiny turkeys in straw hats. Midget monkeys coming through the keyholes.
Billy WilderI, you know, am all over the place โ every category of pictures I have made, good, bad or indifferent. I could not make, like Hitchcock did, one Hitchcock picture after another. โฆ I wanted to do a Hitchcock picture, so I did `Witness for the Prosecution,โ then I was bored with it, so I moved on.
Billy Wilder