Michael Arndt Quotes & Sayings

#1. The best writing really does come from the deepest, most private part of you.

#2. You never want your second act or the whole movie to just be this relentless march towards its goal. You want things to take the audience by surprise.

Michael Arndt

#3. All thought is created, therefore we are all creators of whatever world we live in.

Michael Arndt

#4. The fluidity of thought is based on the flexibility of beliefs and the emotional boundaries surrounding them.

Michael Arndt

#5. Line up your thoughts up for potential, take action and success will follow.

Michael Arndt

#6. Failure can only exist from stagnant perceptions. Everything is a process of learning and if you learn something useful, you have success.

Michael Arndt

#7. I like to begin every screenplay with a burst of delusional self-confidence. It tends to fade pretty quickly, but (for me, at least) there doesn't seem to be any other way to start writing a script.

Michael Arndt

#8. I can write two scripts concurrently, but I usually prefer to do one at a time. However, I also usually have 5 or 6 story ideas that are percolating in my head at any one time, so it can get a little crowded in there.

Michael Arndt

#9. If you write a bunch of different characters with a bunch of different opinions, you end up with these long scenes of everyone standing around talking.

Michael Arndt

#10. I had read enough mediocre scripts and was determined not to inflict another one on the world.

Michael Arndt

#11. Changing how you think costs you no money and it takes no special talent. It does take a commitment on your part to be different.

Michael Arndt

#12. My God, there are so many mediocre screenplays out there.

Michael Arndt

#13. Good writing is deceptive in that it hides its own artifice - it makes it seem easy.

Michael Arndt

#14. One of my favorite films is 'Late Spring' by Yasujiro Ozu. To me, it represents film as art.

Michael Arndt

#15. If you only know something one way, then you don't really know it.

Michael Arndt

#16. Adversity challenges the masks we hide behind, revealing sides of ourselves we have not yet comfortably with the world outside. It is why we dislike adversity, because we have to face what we don't yet understand about ourselves.

Michael Arndt

#17. In terms of writing characters or stories, at least initially, there's no difference between live-action and animation. A good story is a good story, whatever the medium.

Michael Arndt

#18. My thing is that most scripts arent bad scripts, theyre just not finished yet.

Michael Arndt

#19. We have the freedom to excel or inhibit our potential. You are the grand designer of your thoughts and emotions. At some level or another you are the one who chooses which thoughts to accept and which ones to ignore. That can be a very empower realization.

Michael Arndt