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

- Joseph L. Mankiewicz

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

- Joseph L. Mankiewicz

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

- Joseph L. Mankiewicz

All playwrights should be dead for three hundred years.

- 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

There is no such thing as realistic dialogue. If you [simply recorded] the real conversation of any people and played it back from the stage, it woul…

- Joseph L. Mankiewicz

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

- Joseph L. Mankiewicz

In my last two years in high school, my face was pocked with pimples, I stammered when I spoke; if I made a mistake, I blushed furiously, and when ne…

- Joseph L. Mankiewicz

The difference between life and the movies is that a script has to make sense, and life doesn't.

- Joseph L. Mankiewicz