Michael Arndt Quotations

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

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

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

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

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

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

A good story is a good story, whatever the medium.

One of my favorite films is LATE SPRING by Yasujiro Ozu. To me, it represents film as art.

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

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

Working at Pixar has been like my graduate school for screenwriting.

Writing a great script - not just a good one, but a great one - is almost an impossible task.

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.

Every problem offers an opportunity for a solution. if you are in the right frame of mind to find it.

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.

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.

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

In live-action, writing, production, and editing happen in discrete stages. In animation, they overlap - happening simultaneously. This allows a real dialogue to occur between the writer, the director, the actors, and the editor, and it makes the writing process a lot more collaborative and a lot less lonely.

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.

The way you think either stands in your way or assists you in achieving your goals.

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.

The great thing about the animation process is that is goes from, I write the lines, it goes to the actors, the actors bring a whole world to that, they bring the characters to life, then it goes to the animators, then it goes to the editor who cuts it together, and then you screen it and it goes back through the system again.

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

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

Who you think you are is only a thought.

I figured I’d probably write 50 scripts in my life. Out of those 50, I figured maybe five would be produced, and that maybe one or two would be successful. So I always kind of expected I’d write at least one successful film in my life. [...] The way it all came together was kind of like Murphy's law in reverse—I don’t expect that kind of experience again any time soon.

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.

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.

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.

The number one metaphor I have in my mind for writing a screenplay is that...you're trying to climb a mountain blindfolded. And the funny thing about that is, you think, 'Okay, that's hard because you're climbing up a rock face, and you don't know where you're going, and you don't know where the top is, you can't see what's below you...' But actually the hardest part about climbing a mountain blindfolded is just finding the mountain.