Every screenwriter worthy of the name has already directed his film when he has written his script.

- Joseph L. Mankiewicz

I am a critic - as essential to the theatre as ants to a picnic.

- Joseph L. Mankiewicz

And Kate Hepburn-God, she's beautiful, God, she plays golf well, God, she can get anyone in the world on the phone, God, she knows what to do all the…

- Joseph L. Mankiewicz

I'm not biting my fingernails. I'm biting my knuckles. I finished the fingernails months ago.

- Joseph L. Mankiewicz

I've been in on the beginning, the rise, peak, collapse and end of the talking picture.

- Joseph L. Mankiewicz

All playwrights should be dead for three hundred years.

- Joseph L. Mankiewicz

[Writers are] the highest paid secretaries in the world.

- Joseph L. Mankiewicz

I got a job at Metro and went in to see Louis Mayer, who told me he wanted me to be a producer. I said I wanted to write and direct. He said, "No, yo…

- Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Please don't look at me as if you had a source of income other than your salary.

- Joseph L. Mankiewicz