Scripted Quotes & Sayings

To quote a recent customer email, I really appreciate your thoughtful and professional response. I don't get that a lot from customer service. Usually, it's scripted nonsense that makes it seem like I've done something wrong. You've single-handedly improved my perception tenfold. Someone there ought to give you a pay raise. — Matt Mickiewicz

Peace demands more, not less, from a people. Peace lacks the clarity of purpose and the cadence of war. War is scripted: peace is improvisation. — Richard M. Nixon

Doing scripted acting is a challenge to me. I can't remember things too good, so remembering lines is a challenge to your boy. — Flavor Flav

I watch a lot of TV, but I find that recently it's largely oddball stuff ... Scripted stuff sometimes feels like homework, like I'm scoping out the competition or something. — Jane Espenson

Parents should be vigilant and spiritually attentive to spontaneously occurring opportunities to bear testimony to their children. Such occasions need not be programmed, scheduled, or scripted. In fact, the less regimented such testimony sharing is, the greater the likelihood for edification and lasting impact. — David A. Bednar

It is a precise thing, a scripted act as deliberate as Jo No Mai, each move choreographed, a worship of scarcity. — Paolo Bacigalupi

We shoot with three cameras, try to shoot both sides of coverage if possible. That allows the actors to overlap and to find moments that feel more authentic and real than what you sometimes would normally get in a scripted drama that's shot more classically. And that's something in 'Parenthood' that has evolved. — Jason Katims

It's pretty scripted on the road: very organised and compartmentalised, and that's the way it has to be with so many people involved in a Stones tour. — Bobby Keys

You just like the idea of me. You like the person I present myself under circumstances that I can control. I choose what I say and how I say things. It's like being attracted to a fictional character in a book. They are scripted and made up. If you think about it, through writings, we all script and make ourselves up. I don't share the person I become when I am upset. I don't show you how I look like when I sleep. I don't tell you about all the times I've made someone cry. All the guilty things I've done and the bad thoughts I've had. — Jiawei Han

I do come from a theater background, where the playwright is optimal and king and you have to serve the playwright. So I am, of course, a huge fan of scripted everything. — Skylar Astin

Lead a life of your own design, on your own terms
-not one that others, or the environment have
scripted for you. — Tony Robbins

There was a time when a musician was forced to act in a video. Seeing a singer step too far outside of his comfort zone to pour all of his high-school-drama angst into a poorly scripted scenario was a sight to behold. — Shawn Amos

I'd known that the visit would be highly scripted and that genuine interactions with citizens wouldn't be possible, since it's illegal for them to speak with foreigners. Still, I'd thought I'd had a unique look at North Korea, only to discover I was wrong. — Adam Johnson

My biggest problem in my life is I'm cheap and I didn't hire a publicist. In every awkward interview, normally actors get these things scripted. — Robert Pattinson

We are scripted to believe that reality is zero-based and that we live in a closed system. This paradigm of scarcity and insufficiency is the philosophy that undergirds our structures of systemic sin. We fear there won't be enough land, water, food, oil, money, labor to go around, so we build evil structures of sinful force to guarantee that those we call 'us' will have what we call 'ours.' We call it security. We call it defense. We call it freedom. What we don't call it is what it is - fear. — Brian Zahnd

The good thing is that I really think that American television is in kind of a second golden age. Even though there's a lot of reality and all those contest shows, which aren't my kind of shows, the scripted stuff that's going on is so good right now because of basic cable. Everyone has stepped it up and realised that people like quality. — Paul Feig

It was her last breakfast with Bapi, her last morning in Greece. In her frenetic bliss that kept her up till dawn, she'd scripted a whole conversation in Greek for her and Bapi to have as their grand finale of the summer. Now she looked at him contentedly munching on his Rice Krispies, waiting for the right juncture for launchtime.

He looked up at her briefly and smiled, and she realized something important. This was how they both liked it. Though most people felt bonded by conversation, Lena and Bapi were two of a kind who didn't. They bonded by the routine of just eating cereal together.

She promptly forgot her script and went back to her cereal.

At one point, when she was down to just milk, Bapi reached over and put his hand on hers. 'You're my girl,' he said.

And Lena knew she was. — Ann Brashares

Authority is granted to people who are perceived as authoring their own words, their own actions, their own lives, rather than playing a scripted role at great remove from their own hearts. — Parker J. Palmer

People think "The Office" was improvised, but it's all on the page. We do that because what we found is that in the early days of "The Office," we went in with it sort of 80 percent scripted and we did some things and then we improv'd and we did - you know, and it gets a laugh on the floor because it's the first time they've heard it. — Ricky Gervais

Kayfabe is kind of a code. To break kayfabe is to let people know that the punch was not real and that the match was scripted. — John Darnielle

People ask me all the time, 'Are you fed up with reality TV?' At the end of the day, it can affect my career in the sense that the more reality shows there are, the less scripted dramas out there, but I can't ever really knock them. I started on 'Popstars,' which was a reality talent show. I have respect for them. — Josh Henderson

We use improv in all kinds of fun ways. Sometimes it's to invent or discover new things, sometimes it's to weird out the other actors, and sometimes it's to create a sense of fun, to find new things inside the scripted lines. — Josh Gad

My view of Sarah Palin is she is the most dynamic figure maybe in politics, even more in some ways than President Obama, who is a little more scripted than she is. He is great with the teleprompter. — Rudy Giuliani

I look back on my life the way one watches a badly scripted action flick, sitting at the edge of the seat, bursting out, "No, no, don't open that door! The bad guy is in there and he'll grab you and put his hand over your mouth and tie you up and then you'll miss the train and everything will fall apart!" Except there is no bad guy in this tale. The person who jumped through the door and grabbed me and tied me up was, unfortunately, me. My double image, the evil skinny chick who hisses, Don't eat. I'm not going to let you eat. I'll let you go as soon as you're thin, I swear I will. Everything will be okay when you're thin. — Marya Hornbacher

Kim Newman brings Dracula back home in the granddaddy of all vampire adventures. Anno Dracula couldn't be more fun if Bram Stoker had scripted it for Hammer. It's a beautifully constructed Gothic epic that knocks almost every other vampire novel out for the count. — Christopher Fowler

To be fair, on a good project, no matter whether it's improvised or scripted or meticulously prepared, or all up for grabs, it's always, always beyond the safety zone. Every project becomes interesting and exciting once you move beyond that routine. You always aspire to that. It's not that this improvisational mode is the only mode that facilitates that. — Christoph Waltz

I love doing scripted things. What little acting ability I have I am holding on with my hangnails. — Mario Cantone

When I've done somewhat scripted stuff, it feels a little flat. It feels like there's not much life behind it. — Grace Helbig

The world is not kind to whistleblowers - a term of art with particular resonance in football, the most hierarchical and repressive of organized sports, a world of 'systems' and 'programs' and scripted plays, where reading a medical report requires a security clearance, and practice fields are patrolled like Guantanamo Bay. — Jane Leavy

I think Canadians are tired of politicians that are spun and scripted within an inch of their life, people who are too afraid of what a focus group might say about one comment or a political opponent might try to twist out of context, to actually say much of anything at all. — Justin Trudeau

I think the reality-show format is brilliant, has endless possibilities. It's documentary! But unfortunately, it's rarely executed well. So it becomes just a scripted show, but without actors. — Justin Kirk

The Disney parks are scripted, and I hate that. Hate it. I think what they are doing down there in Orlando is fun-pimping ... — Stephen King

Craig inscribed something in the journal and Bob walked over to study the entry. "Does the name Bob Ford mean anything to you?

Craig dipped his quill in the ink bottle and scripted cursively on a brown blotter. "Is that your actual name or your alias?"

"Actual," said Bob, and he grinned with delight when he saw the name recorded in Craig's elegant calligraphy. "Pretty soon all of America will know who Bob Ford is. — Ron Hansen

You feel a little weird, as a writer of scripted television for many years, to say you're a fan of reality TV. You feel like a traitor. But I am a total fan. — Mike White

Even though people are shallow and lots of people prefer scripted fictional heroes to real human beings, they can still be shaken out of it in the presence of someone who is REAL. Your problem is not that you haven't mastered the conversational skills necessary to maintain someone's interest. Your problem is that you've never forced yourself to define exactly who you are and what you love and how you want to live. You've never had to talk about these things passionately. You've never dared to lay yourself bare, without apology. Once you can look someone in the eyes and say, "Here's what really matters to me"? That's what people find attractive, trust me. They want to be with someone who knows himself and gives a shit. That's what's alluring and attractive and irreplaceable, even in this age of smooth make-believe. — Heather Havrilesky

I wish my real life could be as simple and scripted as it is on television. — Nancy Travis

So much history behind and between people, one moment was always a nasty echo of another time, most of who you were already scripted. — Nalo Hopkinson

was it scripted by God or I am playing with my life. — Durgesh Satpathy

We're actually doing something scripted that's totally, you know, we kind of know what's going on, however, we're having to live life and death as the art. — Josh Holloway

Evolved? As a dancer? Me? I don't fall down as much, unless it's part of the scripted dance. I don't step on other people's toes anymore. I think if I started the show a one out of ten dancer, now I am a two and a half. — Cory Monteith

So many reality shows are scripted and create this fake drama, and it's a bunch of bull. We wanted to do something real and something wholesome and something that's focused on positive family values. — Bill Rancic

I use improvisation as a writing tool to help produce material that goes into a script, but a well-crafted script shouldn't sound scripted, and oftentimes people confuse something that looks like improvisation for what is actually a very well-written script that is well-acted. — Steve Coogan

The basic formula of life... SURVIVE. EAT. SHIT. FUCK. BUY A HOUSE and DIE. It's all been scripted. But there's no need to see the second act. You already know how the play ends, don't you? — Andrew Armacost

What I find frustrating about scripted television is that it's rare that you are surprised by how you feel about the character, or how you feel about the show. — Mike White

I've got to get Brittany alone if I'm gonna have any chance of saving face and saving my Honda. Does her freakout session mean she really doesn't hate me? I've never seen that girl do anything not scripted or 100 percent intentional. She's a robot. Or so I thought. She's always looked and acted like a princess on camera every time I've seen her. Who knew it'd be my bloody arm that would crack her.
I look over at Brittany. She's focused on my arm and Miss Koto's ministrations. I wish we were back in the library. I could swear back there she was thinking about getting it on with me.
I'm sporting la tengo dura right here in front of Miss Koto just thinking about it. Gracias a Dios the nurse walks over to the medicine cabinet. Where's a large chem book when you need one? — Simone Elkeles

When you're too robotic and scripted, the students tune you out. So I always tried to use different learning modalities - kinesthetic, auditory, visual, whatever might bring learning to life. — Erin Gruwell

I don't mind doing scripted material. It's actually kind of a relief, because improvising is a little bit like screenwriting on your feet. — John C. Reilly

There are so few representations of women that look remotely real in scripted television. — Brooke Elliott

I will never lose anything that an audience will miss.I turned things that were scripted as effects into in-camera stuff, which is sexier. — Adam Shankman

The hardest thing is that I never do anything the same way twice, and when I'm on the air, I'm very unscripted, and I'm very comfortable in that role. So me being scripted is not a comfortable place for me. — Ashleigh Banfield

I'm not one of those New Age types that believe 'it's all meant to be' and that our lives have been scripted by an invisible hand. — Robin S. Sharma

With an independent movie, it's like, 'Okay I know what I want, and I got to go for it.' I just got to get the A version of this. Occasionally we'll try a B version, but not often. We'll just get what's scripted and try to do that as best we can, so you sort of edit while you shoot an independent movie. — David Twohy

In orthodox film-making, you never shoot sequentially - but with improv, obviously every move you make has a knock-on effect; it is a cumulative process. I have improvised, on the non-scripted 'Timecode.' It can become entirely indulgent: actors smashing crockery and competing verbally. — Saffron Burrows

There's certain things like scripted dramas that - they're either topical or such water-cooler moments that I think that they'll be consumed within 48 hours. You don't have to consume them at 9:00 at night, but you want to consume them within the first couple of days so that you can talk to your friends about it. — Jason Kilar

I really like scripted dramas. My favorite show of all time would have to be 'Lost': I loved how the writers and producers were able to weave the different storylines together; and the acting in that show was incredible. — Nick Jonas

Everyone who loves pro basketball assumes it's a little fixed. We all think the annual draft lottery is probably rigged, we all accept that the league aggressively wants big market teams to advance deep into the playoffs, and we all concede that certain marquee players are going to get preferential treatment for no valid reason. The outcomes of games aren't predeteremined or scripted but there are definitely dark forces who play with our reality. There are faceless puppet masters who pull strings and manipulate the purity of justice. It's not necessarily a full-on conspiracy, but it's certainly not fair. And that's why the NBA remains the only game that matters: Pro basketball is exactly like life. — Chuck Klosterman

I'd trapped myself in a script ... But to be scripted at all is to be prepackaged, programmed, pinned to a page. Only the unwritten can truly live a life. So who I was, what I was, had to be unwritten. — David James Duncan

And in our dark days, with so many threatening clouds on the horizon, he concluded, we puff up a story like this to drug people, to distract their
attention from the serious problems and
divert them with a Romeo-and-Juliet
story, one scripted, however, by a soap opera writer. — Andrea Camilleri

I've come up in the scripted world, and I have wished there were more time slots for us to tell compelling scripted stories and not fill the airwaves with a lot of fluff and tabloid entertainment. — Ralph Macchio

I know politicians are going to be judged on everything they say but sometimes in the heat of discussion you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark. The statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth are those carefully prepared scripted remarks. — Tony Abbott

Then again, they're not scripted and I feel it's virtually impossible to be anything but yourself when you're in front of the cameras and cooking so there is a measure of truth in what you see. — Nigella Lawson

I am not the only one who sometimes thinks I came from the pages of a book my father wrote.
Maybe it's like that for all boys of a certain - or uncertain - age: We feel as though there are no choices we'd made through all those miles and miles behind us that hadn't been scripted by our fathers, and that our futures are only a matter of flipping the next page that was written ahead of us.
I am not the only one who's ever been trapped inside a book. — Andrew Smith

I believe that this corporate machinery of scripted programs, comprehension worksheets (reproducibles, handouts, printables, whatever you want to call them), computer-based incentive packages, and test practice curriculum facilitates a solid bottom-line for the companies that sell them, and give schools proof they can point to that they are using every available resource to teach reading, but these efforts are doomed to fail a large number of students because they leave out the most important factor. When you take a forklift and shovel off the programs, underneath it all is a child reading a book. — Donalyn Miller

You see reality TV and it's not reality TV. It's contrived and everything is plotted and scripted nearly. Documentaries are the same and just as bad. — Ricky Gervais

If you're locked to the words on the script, as good as those scripted words are, if you didn't have the time to rehearse them correctly or if the perceived dynamic between the actors is different from what the writer imagined, and you're not allowed to stray from that, you're going to have a stilted scene. — Mark Duplass

I'd love to be on scripted TV shows and movies, but not just one - I want to be in a lot of them! I'd also love to sing and possibly be on Broadway. I want to do it all. — Maddie Ziegler

Even a beautiful God-scripted love story can never satisfy the way Jesus does ... And until we are able to truly make Him our first love ... we will never know the fullness of Him who fills all in all. We will always be looking to a mere man to meet the desires of our heart, rather than to the One who created us, who knows us better than we know ourselves, and who gave His very life's blood to rescue us. — Leslie Ludy

She was the book that was not written. The sentence that was not scripted. She was the word you wished you could have said. — Lang Leav

During the last decades, films about the black experience have been produced, directed, and even scripted by white men. Some of them are excellent. But most reflect George Bernard Shaw's warning that 'if you do not tell your stories others will tell them for you and they will vulgarize and degrade you.' — Ishmael Reed

I take it very seriously, music. I think it's one of the tools that a director has with which to kind of paint. The right music can sometimes do five pages of scripted dialogue. — Todd Phillips

The way I talk to the puppets is real, and it's in the moment, and it's seeing what will happen. It's not something that is scripted. — Nina Conti

It all went the wrong way, like a carefully scripted scene I imagined ahead of time falling apart because nobody else knew their lines. — Mindy McGinnis

A better ending could not have been scripted. Of course, if we had won, that would have been better. — Bobby Bowden

Eros is an ego-overwhelming, boundary dissolving, breakthrough creating force scripted into human life that is pretty intrinsically psychedelic. — Terence McKenna

One thing was for sure: Barbara Bush was willing to speak her mind. That was something she did quite frequently in later years. Mother's quick wit and self-deprecating humor endeared her to millions of Americans. Her willingness to speak her mind stood in contrast to some tightly scripted political spouses. As a result of her wide following, she helped many Americans understand and love her husband. — George W. Bush

If I have one criticism of the other late-night shows, it's that they're almost entirely scripted. — Jimmy Kimmel

When I meet somebody in the street who knows about 'Humans of New York,' a lot of times they might have a scripted answer, and that scripted answer is the first thing to come out of their mouth. — Brandon Stanton

Love has its own communication. It's the language of the heart, while it has never been transcribed, has no alphabet, and can't be heard or spoken by voice, it is used by every human on the planet. It is written on our souls, scripted by the finger of God, and we can hear, understand, and speak it with perfection long before we open our eyes for the first time. — Charles Martin

Attack politics costs us dearly in terms of insight into the candidates. In a presidential campaign, the focus is so tight that the politicians are afraid to say anything that hasn't been scripted. — Jack Germond

Despite the differences between our species and cultures, there is an order that we all share. The development of a civilization is a scripted event. Minds join together to create new technologies, on its own against threats from the outside, that civilization crumbles. — Becky Chambers

Josh [Gad] is such an amazing improviser and is so good when the material is flowing from him that sometimes, if a written scene isn't working quite right, I'll tell him that we've got it and that he can just play. He'll blow us away with some super weird stuff and some wild things that we might use bits and pieces of in the edit, and then I'll say, "Just for good measure, let's do one more of the scripted version." — Josh Gad

'SVU' is one of my favorite shows. When I got the call to appear and play myself, I jumped at the chance. Obviously, I went over my lines, but playing yourself is a really great way to get your feet wet in the acting field. I enjoyed being on set and learning as much as I could about the scripted world. — Taylor Hicks

with you, the sense i have lost my place in a book
or simply lost - misplaced the memory
which isn't in the last place where I looked.
a thought that the clouds don't move - that it is we
who thunder past - there it is! an old vacation,
a train ride - sense of immobility.
as sky and forest scroll past in relation,
we are not moved, pretend to love the view,
resort at length to scripted conversation
by a poet-turned-screenwriter who
didn't want this job, career gone grossly wrong
and now drafts action film scripts wholly two-
dimensional unless you choose to don
the 3d glasses that do not stay on - — Joshua Ip

No one could ad lib like Peter. You would think that it was all scripted, he was so poetic, but it wasn't. — Barbara Walters

Reality television is a scripted hyper-life that employs writers, but won't allow them to call themselves writers or join the union. — Merrill Markoe

Acting is really scary, but it's also challenging, fun, hard work. There's always an element of improvisation with every actor, even when something is really scripted. — Michael Pitt

Men were doomed to repeat the sins of not only their fathers, but all their ancient forbears on back to Cain. That was the true mark upon man, scripted in his very blood. — Charles Dodd White

It's a dream realized to partner with Oprah and bring scripted programming to OWN. She has accomplished so much with the network, and I'm excited to work with her to be a part of its continued growth. — Tyler Perry

Careful not to blur the lines between what belongs to characters, and what does not belong to you. Even 'reality tv' is scripted. Don't get it twisted. ~T.F. Hodge — T.F. Hodge

As I listened to his cunning, scripted message, I became even angrier. He never apologized to us. He never apologized for putting us in that position. He lied out of both ends of his mouth, blaming the Secret Service while saying he wanted to be forthcoming but couldn't - two lies in one! He and his staff created the Protective Function Privilege. He was the one who did the deed, committed the misconduct. He was the one who lied. Not only did he never apologize for costing the taxpayers, the Justice Department, the Secret Service, his staff, his constituents, or anyone for putting them through the ringer, endangering our careers, and our very lives. He wanted us to believe that he was sorry for embarrassing his family, Chelsea and Hillary. (I can understand about Chelsea.) — Gary J. Byrne

I like - there's a better word for it, but I like the danger that a comic brings to a role. It has a feeling, even though everything's scripted and everything's planned what you're going to do. When I see Will Ferrell or Sacha Baron Cohen, there's a feeling that anything could happen. — Todd Phillips

Hollywood culture is a universal culture now. Everyone wants to step out of life and into the flat perfections of a movie screen. My own wish to drown was not so different from the desire those girls had to leave their real lives behind, to recieve new names and wardrobes and perfectly scripted lines. — Jonathan Rosen

We owe Clint Eastwood a debt of thanks. Not only because it was truly a hilarious twelve minutes of improvised "awesome" in a week of scripted "blah".
But because it advanced our understanding.
This president has issues, and there are very legitimate debates about his policies and actions, and successes and or failures as president - I mean, tune in next week. But I could never wrap my head around why the world, and the president republicans describe, bears so little resemblance to the world and the president that I experience. And now I know why :
There is a president Obama that only republicans can see — Jon Stewart

For all I knew this was going to be just another in a string of fabulous cock-ups that seemed to be scripted for us by some unknown writer somwhere, some overweight forty-year old loafing in cargo shorts and flip-flops. — Mark Henry

The cardinal sin in sports, what could really wreck it, is not cheating to win, which has gone on forever, but cheating to lose. That threatens a fundamental aspect of sports' appeal, which is their spontaneity. If games are fixed, they're no different from movies; they're scripted. — Michael Mandelbaum

I made the only decision I ever knew how to make,' Truman famously asserted in one of his carefully scripted reminiscences. What does that mean, exactly? Did Truman see himself as a professional decision-maker with a narrow specialty, the choice between destroying and not destroying Japanese cities? — James K. Morrow

Our deal always was that we did one as scripted always, we got it like we thought we needed - so we were all happy with it as written. Then I'd let him play as long as we had time. — Blair Underwood

The displacement of scripted series by reality programming continues to be a severe obstacle to a working actor's ability to earn a living. — Alan Rosenberg

True parents do not see to it that their children grow in a particular way, according to a preferred pattern or scripted stages, but they see to it that they grow with their children. — James P. Carse

There were a story scripted on the wall, no words used though, just pictures, memories, from another world. Her happy place. — Stine Saugmann