Dunne Quotes & Sayings

There are no friends at cards or world politics. — Finley Peter Dunne

Complications, usually lead to more complications; ...and if you continue to complicate things, you might end up dead in the Hospital, ...due to, Complications!! — Sean Dunne

It struck me that working digitally with a small crew, I could lay out a general plan for Famous and hope for mistakes which would create something more than satire and something less than truthful reality. — Griffin Dunne

I wish this country was run by children — Jonathan Dunne

Gonzo, the enlightened hippy-biker island god, was a hermit in every sense of the word; a hermit crab and this island was his shell. — Jonathan Dunne

An appeal is when you ask one court to show its contempt for another court. — Finley Peter Dunne

Humour is my best defence, so humour me. — Jonathan Dunne

Every movie is wildly different. So many of the problems are the same, but they take on different guises. — Griffin Dunne

If mysterious means a bunch of freaks being brought together by a freak car-accident, then, yes, God does vork in mysterious vays' declared the eldest Russian Doll. — Jonathan Dunne

But I remember feeling as a producer I felt like the guy who called the caterer and got the band; I had to work the party while everybody else was having a good time. — Griffin Dunne

I even watched Mulholland Drive in French ... it didn't make much more sense in French, but I have to say, it didn't make any less sense either. — Tom Dunne

Writing is a manual labor of the mind: a job, like laying pipe. — John Gregory Dunne

Critical design can never be truly popular, and that is the fundamental problem. Objects that are critical of industry's agenda are unlikely to be funded by industry. — Anthony Dunne

But friends invited me to a private screening of Emmanuelle and said I'd learn a few things. But I know all the swear words. I just don't use them. So I declined. — Irene Dunne

The eleventh commandment of a motion picture negotiation: Thou shalt not take less than thy last deal. — John Gregory Dunne

There's always wan encouragin' thing about th' sad scientific facts that come out ivrv week in th' pa-apers. They're usually not thrue. — Finley Peter Dunne

It don't make much difference what you study, so long as you don't like it. — Finley Peter Dunne

There ain't any news in being good. You might write the doings of all the convents of the world on the back of a postage stamp, and have room to spare. — Finley Peter Dunne

No matter whether the Constitution follows the flag or not, the Supreme Court follows the election returns. — Finley Peter Dunne

I always believed in my characters. I lived them. — Irene Dunne

Work is work if you're paid to do it, and it's a pleasure if you pay to be allowed to do it. — Finley Peter Dunne

New York means so much to people. If you're inclined to leave the nest, New York is where most people think they have to go, and it's been that way since the first skyscraper. — Griffin Dunne

I think we were the first picture to cut on Final Cut Pro. So we were the guinea pigs, because we got a deal on the system. But with that comes all sorts of technological problems I couldn't begin to describe. — Griffin Dunne

Sarah is a mirage after all; an oasis in this arid, amnesiac, desert mindscape. I fear if I get too close she too will turn to dust. — Jonathan Dunne

Ruthy's got the curves of the Scalextric he had once gotten for Christmas. — Jonathan Dunne

A fanatic is a man that does what he thinks the Lord would do if He knew the facts of the case. — Finley Peter Dunne

Novels do take charge of the writer, and the writer is basically a kind of sheepdog just trying to keep things on track. — John Gregory Dunne

I met a few chimpanzees on my pilgrimages and I wasn't sure if they were just shrivelled-up villagers or chimps... — Jonathan Dunne

Don't jump on a man unless he is down. — Finley Peter Dunne

In that brief kiss, Arthur's demigod had abandoned him. — Jonathan Dunne

Parties are the nightly ritual of the sophisticated society. — Dominick Dunne

I had never attended a trial until my daughter's murder trial. What I witnessed in that courtroom enraged and redirected me. — Dominick Dunne

I don't see hair when I see your mohawk. I see attitude. — Jonathan Dunne

Time will always have the answer in the end, whether you like that answer is immaterial to Time because it tends not to keep friends. — Jonathan Dunne

Although there was a screenplay, the actors never knew what questions I was going to ask them, and all of my character's voice-over narration and scenes were added after the fact. — Griffin Dunne

I'll leave the swearing to the Jane Fondas. — Irene Dunne

I've shrunk but I haven't lost my colour — Jonathan Dunne

You're wrong about one thing: fairy-tales do exist. Millions of existing parents read existing fairy-tales every night from existing books to kids who, funnily enough...'
'... exist, yeah, I know. I mean it's fantasy, not reality. — Jonathan Dunne

It's easy to understand why the most beautiful poems about England in the spring were written by poets living in Italy at the time. — Philip Dunne

I've always thought a novelist only has one character and that is himself or herself. — John Gregory Dunne

serve as the Find Amy Dunne — Gillian Flynn

And yet I think The White Cliffs of Dover one of my best films. — Irene Dunne

Continued focus on (employee) turnover is of critical importance, because of the direct relation of turnover to improvements in labor costs and guest satisfaction. — Finley Peter Dunne

To most people a savage nation is wan that doesn't wear oncomf'rtable clothes. — Finley Peter Dunne

Why did you call me Jack of Hearts?'
'Because you like to gamble girls' hearts and play them close to your chest. — Jonathan Dunne

I don't understand all about New York society. It's only when they are in trouble that I'm really interested. — Dominick Dunne

My hunger and desperation, being an actor, an out of work actor - my memory of that is as fresh as an open wound. — Griffin Dunne

The way of words, of knowing and loving words, is a way to the essence of things, and to the essence of knowing. — John Dunne

I wonder why you can always read a doctor's bill and you can never read his prescription. — Finley Peter Dunne

I care not who makes th' laws iv a nation, if I can get out an injunction. — Finley Peter Dunne

If a man is wise, he gets rich an' if he gets rich, he gets foolish, or his wife does. That's what keeps the money movin' around. — Finley Peter Dunne

I love working with actors. I love to see what they're going to do. There's just something very thrilling and satisfying with being involved with something, all the way through the process [making movie]. — Griffin Dunne

I recall when this place was a good 'n honest community hall with a great sense of place and pride but now it's just a hall and fuck the community. — Jonathan Dunne

I can remember certain Manchester United defeats the way most people remember family bereavements or great political events. The four-nil drubbing by Barcelona, the failure to score against West Ham, the New Year's Day calamity at home to Spurs, the mauling by Middlesborough. — Tom Dunne

The point of a notebook is to jumpstart the mind. — John Gregory Dunne

A chimpanzee is not the same category as a capuchin - chimps are half-human. I need a chimp and his name is going to be Bertie. — Jonathan Dunne

Motor racing's less of a sport these days than a commercial break doing 150 mph. — Peter Dunne

They had taken see-no-evil and had made it their own by adopting a state sanctioned Orwellian see-no-evil policy — Jonathan Dunne

As a director, I've been able to combine with what I've learned as an actor and as a producer: it melds quite nicely into what I feel like I should have been doing all along. — Griffin Dunne

It is more comfortable to feel that we are a slight improvement on a monkey than such a fallin' off from the angels. — Finley Peter Dunne

The wise people are in New York because the foolish went there first, that's the way the wise men make a living. — Finley Peter Dunne

Payback takes many forms but from the business-end of a Christmas turkey isn't a form I would've bet on... — Jonathan Dunne

Mama, rest in pieces, used to call it Dada's hibernation because sometimes people don't wake up from a coma. — Jonathan Dunne

Have you ever really wanted to be able to do something, but you came across a roadblock of some kind?
You have a difficult choice. I made that choice once and it changed my whole life, by giving me experiences I never would have had if I took the easy street and had not tried. — Deanie Humphrys-Dunne

Th' first thing to have in a libry is a shelf.
Fr'm time to time this can be decorated with lithrachure.
But th' shelf is th' main thing. — Finley Peter Dunne

When I was young, I was a hunter, walking wooded hillsides with confident steps and a gun in my hand. I knew the blur of wings, the rocketing form, and the Great Moment that only hunters know, when all existence draws down to two points and a single line. And the universe holds it breath. And what may be and what will be meet and become one - before the echo returns to its source. — Pete Dunne

Amy Elliot Dunne is like a yeti - coveted and folkloric - ... — Gillian Flynn

I'm so much happier now that I'm dead. Technically missing. Soon to be presumed dead. Gone. And my lazy lying shitting oblivious husband will go to prison for my murder. Nick Dunne took my pride and my dignity and my hope and my money. He took and took from me until I no longer existed. That's murder. Let the punishment fit the crime. — Gillian Flynn

I started on the opening page of my own book.
'I am a cheating, weak-spined, women-fearing coward, and i am the hero of your story. Because the woman I cheated on - my wife, Amy Elliott Dunne - is a sociopath and a murderer.'
Yes. I'd read that. — Gillian Flynn

I was suffering, seemingly, from some extraordinary fault in my relation to reality, something so uniquely wrong that it compelled me to perceive, at rare intervals, large blocks of otherwise perfectly normal personal experience displaced from their proper positions in Time. — J.W. Dunne

Stories are meant to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable. — Finley Peter Dunne

And before you make any judgments, that time you were trying out your king-size with the sales assistant doesn't count as getting a man into bed. — Jonathan Dunne

Alcohol is necessary for a man so that he can have a good opinion of himself, undisturbed be the facts. — Finley Peter Dunne

With admirable vigour, Everest, the obese pasty kid, begins listing the world's serial killers in alphabetical order. 'Jeffrey Dahmer; Charles 'The Axe' Eden; Freddy 'The Fox' Flanagan...' Steadily advancing through the monsters, jowls redder and redder as he refuses to breathe. If ever Queen B thought that her sister had secretly dropped her son on his head during one of her binges, then it's now, even his albino eyes are glowing red. — Jonathan Dunne

I try to dig deep into my memory vault but my memory fault is all I find. — Jonathan Dunne

Documentaries have always inspired me in narrative filmmaking. — Griffin Dunne

You can lade a man up to th' university, but ye can't make him think. — Finley Peter Dunne

I'll buy Chiquita bananas with your smoking-fund money cos this monkey is our future. All hail the monkey! — Jonathan Dunne

When 'tis an aven thing in th' prayin', may th' best man win ... an' th' best man will win. — Finley Peter Dunne

If Christian scientists had more science and doctors more Christianity, it wouldn't make any difference which you called in - if you had a good nurse. — Finley Peter Dunne

Viceis a creature of such heejous mienthat th' more ye see it th' betther ye like it. — Finley Peter Dunne

You write about what you have access to, and I have been fortunate enough to have a front-row seat on the rich and powerful my entire life. — Dominick Dunne

Sometimes I regret going into that public toilet with your father.'
'Then practice safe sex, Mama!!'
'We were! There was a fight in the bar and we took cover in the public toilets!! — Jonathan Dunne

I'll now fall back a furlong or two in me chair, while me larned but misguided collagues r-read th' Histhry iv Iceland to show ye how wrong I am. But mind ye, what I 've said goes. I let thim talk because it exercises their throats, but ye 've heard all th' decision on this limon case that'll get into th' fourth reader.' A voice fr'm th' audjeence, ' Do I get me money back ? ' Brown J. : ' Who ar-re ye ? ' Th' Voice : ' Th' man that ownded th' limons.' Brown J. : ' I don't know.' (Gray J., White J., dissentin' an' th' r-rest iv th' birds concurrin' but fr entirely diff'rent reasons.) — Finley Peter Dunne

Alex: Rosie, I'm serious. Keep the money and say nothing. Give it to charity or something if it bothers you that much. You can make a donation to the Reginald Williams Foundation for Heart Disease if you want.
Rosie: Gag, gag, puke, puke. No thanks. But the charity thing isn't a bad idea. I think I'll do that.
Alex: Which one will you donate it to?
Rosie: The Rosie Dunne Foundation for Women Who Haven't Seen Their Best Friends in America for Ages.
Alex: That's a good charity. Very needy too.
Ahern, Cecelia (2005-02-01). Love, Rosie (p. 275). Hachette Books. Kindle Edition. — Cecelia Ahern

Opportunity knocks at every man's door once. On some men's door it hammers till it breaks down the door and then it goes in and wakes him up if he's asleep, and ever afterward it works for him as a night watchman. — Finley Peter Dunne

Unicorns are for those who aren't content with the wonders this world holds...not that I've seen any of it. — Jonathan Dunne

The only time we stopped having nightmares was while we slept. — Jonathan Dunne

A rayformer thinks he was ilicted because he was a rayformer, whin th thruth iv th matther is he was ilicted because no wan knew him. — Finley Peter Dunne

I don't believe he was made in China, but I do believe he is disposable. — Jonathan Dunne

A man's idea in a game of cards is war, cruel, devastating, and pitiless. A lady's idea of it is a combination of larceny, embezzlement and burglary. — Finley Peter Dunne

No, there was nothing unusual in any of these dreams as dreams. They were merely displaced in Time. — J.W. Dunne

But this month is all about CITY OF JASMINE which I hope you already have in your hot little hands. My favorite review snippet? KIRKUS REVIEWS said it's "part screwball comedy".
I can't tell you how much time I spent with Carole Lombard and William Powell and Irene Dunne when I was writing it. I adore the 30s comedies for their light-hearted take on relationships and adventure - and the glamorous settings and occasional dash of intrigue only heighten the magic. (Did you know that Nicholas Brisbane from my Lady Julia series was named for THE THIN MAN's Nick Charles? And apologies to Dashiell Hammett, but I fell in love with the film long before I read the book and appreciated how much it had been lightened in the adaptation!) So when you're reading CITY OF JASMINE, give some thought to who you'd like to see playing Evie and Gabriel - I'd love to hear who you'd cast in your own production. — Deanna Raybourn

Trust everybody, but always cut the cards. — Finley Peter Dunne

I started all over again on page 1, circling the 262 pages like a vulture looking for live flesh to scavenge. — John Gregory Dunne

The world is not growing worse and it is not growing better
it is just turning around as usual. — Finley Peter Dunne

I've read all the books, I've watched all the films and now, thanks to the glory of home gaming, I've even kind of experienced it: I've landed on the beaches of Normandy, I have successfully held Pegasus Bridge and I've disabled German tanks with stolen Panzerfausts. I have fought in Italy, France and North Africa and if I had a Euro for every virtual life I've lost I'd be able to build a replica of Hitler's bunker in my back garden. — Tom Dunne

Where all is fog, a blind man with a stick is not entirely at a disadvantage. — J.W. Dunne

But at the same time, never having final cut before, I really learned an interesting thing for any studio executive who is reading this: that if a director has final cut, it's actually easier and more interesting to listen to notes. — Griffin Dunne

I made no pretense of doing balanced reporting about murder. I was appalled by defense attorneys who would do anything to win an acquittal for a guilty person. — Dominick Dunne