Top 10 Quotes & Sayings by Leigh Brackett

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American writer Leigh Brackett.

Last updated on April 15, 2025.

Leigh Douglass Brackett was an American science fiction writer called "the Queen of Space Opera." She was also a screenwriter known for The Big Sleep (1946), Rio Bravo (1959), and The Long Goodbye (1973). She also worked on an early draft of The Empire Strikes Back (1980), elements of which remained in the film; she died before the film went into production. She was the first woman shortlisted for the Hugo Award. In 2020, she won a Retro Hugo for her novel The Nemesis From Terra, originally published as "Shadow Over Mars".

American - Writer | December 7, 1915 - March 18, 1978

Source: Wikipedia

Screenwriting is still a challenge for me. It's more technical than creative. You have to be a very good journeyman plumber and put the proper parts together. Then, if you can still inject a little bit of something worthwhile, you have done as much as can be expected.

Leigh Brackett

The filmmaking process is a team effort. A screenwriter cannot possibly do exactly what he wants as if he was writing a novel.

Leigh Brackett

Writing a film is like building a brick wall. You have a plan, and you have the blocks. Then, somebody says, 'I think we'll take this stone out of here and put it over there. And while we're at it, let's make this stone red and that stone green.'

Leigh Brackett

When I write a novel, I am God at my own typewriter, and there is nobody in between. But when I write a screenplay, it must be a compromise because there are so many elements which are outside the writer's province.

Leigh Brackett

David will never go to space again. I'm glad.What did it gain the McQuarries? What has it ever gained men? Have men ever brought back more happiness from the stars? Will they ever?

Leigh Brackett

Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is.

Leigh Brackett

Plot is people. Human emotions and desires founded on the realities of life, working at cross purposes, getting hotter and fiercer as they strike against each other until finally there's an explosion-that's Plot.

Leigh Brackett