A Quote by Nunnally Johnson

A dramatic writer should never tell anything he can show. — © Nunnally Johnson
A dramatic writer should never tell anything he can show.
I don't have anything that dramatic as far as a performance goes. I've never participated in a show that ended in a fight in my memory.
Never mind the transience of show business and popularity. When we hear Ray Charles, we go, 'That's a great singer.' You don't need a reporter or a writer to tell us. Good is good and it should shine through the years.
Basically we learned not ever to do a show like that [ Gigi Does It] again. That took me to a limit that I didn't know I had. First off, I show-ran the show and was the head writer. I had never done anything like that before. It was an immense responsibility.
But we should ask the question: Why should a writer be more than a writer? Why should a writer be a guru? Why are we supposed to be psychiatrists? Isn't it enough to write and tell the truth? It's not like telling the truth is common. Writers are the earthworms of society. We aerate the soil. That's enough.
Why should I tell you everything about how I feel when you never tell me anything?
I've never had anyone put on a puppet show to convince me of anything. And I've done a lot of stuff. I don't know that I would put the puppets on when I was pitching a show. This was the head of the studio putting a puppet show on. And I'll tell you, he wasn't bad.
I was never the class clown or anything like that. When I was growing up and doing theatre in Seattle I was always doing very dramatic work... Now I can’t get a dramatic role to save my life!
I was never the class clown or anything like that. When I was growing up and doing theatre in Seattle I was always doing very dramatic work. Now I can't get a dramatic role to save my life!
I believe that there is a certain amount of mysticism that all women should have, that you should never tell all your secrets, that you should never tell everybody all about you.
Mike and I like a balance of tones. We never set out to make an overtly silly show or an overly serious dramatic show.
Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work-- the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside-- the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don't show their effect all at once. There is another sort of blow that comes from within-that you don't feel until it's too late to do anything about it, until you realize with finality that in some regard you will never be as good a man again.
Making a film means, first of all, to tell a story. That story can be an improbable one, but it should never be banal. It must be dramatic and human. What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out?
If you want to be a singer or a performer or absolutely anything in the world that you want to do, I think you should never give up, you should never let anyone put you down and tell you you can't do it, because if you believe in yourself you will go far
If an alien race lands on the planet Earth tomorrow and asks me to prove I'm really here, what do I do? What do I give them? What do I tell them? What do I show them? I can't sing or dance. I can't paint. I've never built anything, and I've never contributed anything significant to the human race.
It is the little writer rather than the great writer who seems never to quote, and the reason is that he is never really doing anything else.
Parents should watch what their children watch and not use TV as a babysitter. If a show is objectionable they should turn it OFF. They should write the president of the network and tell him they are never going to watch that program again and why.
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