Silent Movie Quotes & Sayings

I'd never been in love, because I was waiting for the silent-movie love: big eyes and violins, chattering without sound, pure. Nobody had loved right since 1926. — Rich Horton

It must have been hard making a silent movie about a girl who hears voices.) — Stephen Clarke

Something I am wondering:
if you cannot hear
do you have no sounds
in your head?
Do you see
a
silent
movie — Sharon Creech

There was nothing to react to except wind and trees [in Cast Away]. It was like making a silent movie. — Tom Hanks

The other day in the garage, I found a book report from the seventh grade that I did about silent movie stars. It's funny to look at now, because it really foretold what my future would be. — Mark Bridges

IF YOU PRETEND THE CHARACTERS CANT SPEAK, AND WRITE A SILENT MOVIE, YOU WILL BE WRITING GREAT DRAMA. — David Mamet

Silly boys. Did you think we were making a silent movie? — Koushun Takami

When you see a silent movie, you understand everything that's going on from the images because the images are so strong. — Monica Bellucci

It's funny how when you watch people from a long distance, it all seems voiceless. It's like watching a silent movie. You guess what people say. You watch their mouths move and imagine the sounds of their feet hitting the ground. You wonder what they're talking about and, even more so, what they might be thinking — Markus Zusak

Actually, I met a lot of directors and most of them have that fantasy to make a silent movie because for directors it's the purest way to tell a story. It's about creating images that tell a story and you don't need dialogue for that. — Michel Hazanavicius

Like the he-man movie stars who turn out to be queer ... or the silent-film actors whose voices sound terrible recorded
the audience only wants a limited amount of honesty. [ellipses original] — Chuck Palahniuk

I was always the hero with no vices, reciting practically the same lines to the leading lady. The current crop of movie actors are less handicapped than the old ones. They are more human. The leading men of silent films were Adonises and Apollos. Today the hero can even take a poke at the leading lady. In my time a hero who hit the girl just once would have been out. — Ramon Novarro

I got a chance to work with Mel Brooks on two of his films: Silent Movie and High Anxiety. — Barry Levinson

Right now I'm the most famous silent movie actress in the world and I want to keep that for me. So I hope there's not going to be any other silent movies. — Berenice Bejo

For the next two hours Denise mainly paid attention to her hand, which she'd laid on the sofa cushion within easy reach of Robin's. The hand wasn't comfortable there, it wanted to be retracted, but she didn't want to give up hard-won territory.
When the movie ended they watched TV, and then they were silent for an impossibly long time, five minutes or a year, and still Robin didn't take the warm, five-fingered bait. Denise would have welcomed some pushy male sexuality right around now. — Jonathan Franzen

When I was a kid, I loved all the silent comedians - Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Chaplin. And I used to imitate them. I'd go to see a Buster Keaton movie and come home and try things out I'd seen. I learned to do pratfalls when I was very young. — Dick Van Dyke

She knew with suddeness and ease that this moment would be with her always, within hand's reach of memory.
She doubted if they all sensed it - they had seen the world - but even George was silent for a minute as they looked, and the scene, the smell, even the sound of the band playing a faintly recognisable movie theme, was locked forever in her, and she was at peace. — Stephen King

I'm not an American actor. I'm a French actor. I'll continue in France. If I could make another silent movie in America, I'd like to! — Jean Dujardin

Today we are aware as never before of the plurality of human life-styles and possibilities, while at the same time being tied, like in an old silent movie, to a runaway locomotive rushing headlong toward a very singular catastrophe — Gary Snyder

Think of what it must have been like in the Scholomance for all those years it was closed," said Dru, her eyes gleaming with horror-movie delight. "All the way up in the mountains, totally abandoned and dark, full of spiders and ghosts and shadows ... "
"If you want to think about somewhere scary, think about the Bone City," said Livvy. The City of Bones was where the Silent Brothers lived: It was an underground place of networked tunnels built out of the ashes of dead Shadowhunters.
"I'd like to go to the Scholomance," interrupted Ty.
"I wouldn't," said Livvy. "Centurions aren't allowed to have parabatai."
"I'd like to go anyway," said Ty. "You could come too if you wanted."
"I don't want to go to the Scholomance," said Livvy. "It's in the middle of the Carpathian Mountains. It's freezing there, and there are bears."
Ty's face lit up as it often did at the mention of animals. "There are bears?"
"Enough chatter," said Diana. — Cassandra Clare

What is your favorite song? The Silent Song. I could sing it for you, but you wouldn't be able to hear it. Only alpacas and very rare mice have the ability to hear The Silent Song. Do you have any children? rufus, joseephus, artie choke, woody bush, pat may wiener, meowy, boopsie and bob. What's your favorite movie? It's a tie between "The Anal girls of tobacco road: vagina slimes" and "sex starved fuck sluts #22: stinky white women." The well-developed plot and range of emotions portrayed in vagina slimes far outweighs that of stinky white women, but at the same time, the complexity in the cinematic quality of stinky white women should not be overlooked. — Tara Sivec

My least favorite form of street harassment is when a guy asks why I'm not smiling. It's related to that: Women aren't allowed to be quiet or stoic or shy - or, hell, just in a bad mood - without being criticized. Women are bitchy and frigid if we don't seem accessible at all times, for the most part to men. We're supposed to be perpetually friendly. Who wants to live up to that? And seriously, when was the last time you heard a quiet woman described as "deep"?
Men who are serious are just that - serious. Think laconic cowboys and Clint Eastwood-style movie heroes. Strong and silent is a desirable personality trait for men - women, not so much. Because where silence in men is seen as strength, silence in women (if not seen as bitchy) is seen as weakness - she's shy, a wallflower. — Jessica Valenti

I would've been a really big silent movie star. — Caitriona Balfe

People inside the theaters usually, not 100 percent but most of them, enjoy the movie. Usually they come with a small negative view. In a way, they're prepared to get bored because it's silent and because it's black and white. So they are much more pleased to be entertained in a way. They're very happy when they go out. This was my job. For the other ones, I can do nothing except screen the movie and hope that they will say to their friends that it's not so [bad]. — Michel Hazanavicius

Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back -
Holden: If the buzz is any indicator, that movie's gonna make some huge bank.

Jay: What buzz?

Holden: The Internet buzz.

Jay: What the fuck is the Internet?

Holden: The Internet is a communication tool used the world over where people can come together to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another. — Jason Mewes

That evening I sat across from Jeremy Bulloch and Jacob at the dinner table. I watched as Jeremy, who seemed to speak Jacob's silent language fluently, drummed his fingers up and down on the edge of the table, as if playing a piano. A delighted Jacob mimicked the actor's actions. My throat filled with tears. I met Ben's eyes across the table, where he sat straight with pride next to his son. He was enjoying the show just as much as I was. Jacob was in his element, interacting with an actor from his favorite movie. The other men at the table were part of the set: Mike, the owner of the comic book store, who had made the entire thing possible, and the Mandalorin Mercs, new friends of the little boy who had
become one of their own, a comrade in distress. — Mary Potter Kenyon

I thought 'The Artist' was a perfect way to find a good balance. The artistic challenge is obvious because the film is black-and-white and its silent, but I did my best to make the movie accessible and easy to watch. I really don't want to make elitist movies. I really try hard to work for the audience. Audiences are smart. They get everything. — Michel Hazanavicius

I don't just want a gripping story line. I shoot for the three dimensional literary Braille to a silent Scorsese movie — Carl Henegan

I think the approach of the character for us is the same in a silent movie as in a talking movie because we had balance, we had lines to learn. — Berenice Bejo

I've often stood silent at a party for hours listening to my movie idols turn into dull and little people. — Marilyn Monroe

The movie people would have nothing to do with me until they heard me speak in a Broadway play, then they all wanted to sign me for the silent movies. — W.C. Fields

When I'm actually assembling a scene, I assemble it as a silent movie. Even if it's a dialog scene, I lip read what people are saying. — Walter Murch

They said 'if you have a 3D movie, we'll buy it' because they want it. For maybe two weeks I really thought of a silent, black and white 3D movie and I thought it could be great. I imagined it as a very special image, a very new image, but fortunately, I didn't have to do it. — Michel Hazanavicius

I was playing organ at a silent movie house at Harlem and they'd be showing some death scene on the screen. Likely as not, I'd grab a bottle and start swingin' out on 'Squeeze Me' or 'Royal Garden Blues'. The managers complained but, heck, they couldn't stop me! — Fats Waller

First of all, I had the desire for that format [silent movie], and then when I was talking to people, I felt that people needed justification. Why are you doing a silent movie? Is it just for your own pleasure? I felt it was not enough for them so I realized I have to choose the subject that will make things easier for them and to tell the story of a silent actor makes sense for doing a silent movie. — Michel Hazanavicius

How could anything be the same? The red of blood lay over the market road in slick pools mingled with a yellow spread of dal someone must have brought in anticipation of a picnic after the parade, and there were flies on it, left behind odd slippers, and a sad pair of broken spectacles, even a tooth. It was rather like the government warning about safety that appeared in the cinema before the movie with the image of a man cycling to work, a poor man but with a wife who loved him, and she had sent his lunch with him in a tiffin container; then came a blowing of horns and small, desperate cycle tinkle, and a messy blur clearing into the silent still image of a spread of food mingled with blood. Those mismatched colors, domesticity shuffled with death, sureness running into the unexpected, kindness replaced by the image of violence, always made the cook feel like throwing up and weeping both together. — Kiran Desai

If you try to make a silent movie with a normal script and you just pull out the dialogue, you will have big problems with the actors because you will ask them to tell a story that you don't know. — Michel Hazanavicius

But it was not what I wanted to do! I wanted to star in a silent movie and vamp the sheik, take a trip to the South Seas ... walk naked in the sand and surf ... write a novel about it. Be the Empress of the Galaxy, be discovered by a hero that would ravish me, and take me away on high adventure! Take a interminable motor home trip across the US and find out how the past had become the present. Journey to Europe, speak flawless French, and become the courtesan in the country chalet where all the real people came to party." She laughed again. "Mostly I did not want be confined to routine ... endless routine. — William C. Samples

Karou was, simply, lovely. Creamy and leggy, with long azure hair and the eyes of a silent-movie star, she moved like a poem and smiled like a sphinx. Beyond merely pretty, her face was vibrantly alive, her gaze always sparking and luminous, and she had a birdlike way of cocking her head, her lips pressed together while her dark eyes danced, that hinted at secrets and mysteries. — Laini Taylor

I always loved silent movies. I was not a specialist, but I loved them. And when I started directing, I became really fascinated by the format - how it works, the device of the silent movie. It's not the same form of expression as a talkie. The lack of sounds makes you participate in the storytelling. — Michel Hazanavicius

This is a universal, unique movie, it has potential to cross barriers. But we never thought about that on set, when we were doing the film. We knew that in making a silent movie, we were doing something a little bit under the wire, a bit interdit. It's a pastiche, but for the French taste, you would have thought. — Jean Dujardin

For you, it's a silent movie. For us, it's a talking movie because we had lines on set. There's a lot of noise on set and music. We spoke in English, in French, in gibberish, but it was very alive. The challenge was tap dancing. — Jean Dujardin