Christopher Hampton Quotes

I give as much as I can, and it's up to someone else to turn it into a movie. Good luck to you!

A lot of books, if you take them at face value, they're just not gonna work as films.

But the animation has become very good, and I think that a movie is not a book, and a book is not a movie.

Movies are not novels, and that's why, when filmmakers try to adapt novels, particularly long or complex novels, the result is almost always failure. It can't be done.

Most films are rooted in a book or a comic strip, but I don't go out there saying I want to do adaptations.

These properties that get made into movies, some are easier than others. When they first said, 'Yeah, they're making a movie out of Lego,' I said, 'Lego what? What does that even mean?' And it's such a good concept.

Getting your screenplay right is the most important thing you'll ever do on your film.

After Strangelove I also started work on an adaptation of The Collector.

Sometimes I get to see a movie that's adapted from a book that I haven't heard about or that I love the movie so much that I will, of course, read the book.

I don't hold with the notion that only bad books make good movies.

If there's a good screenplay, there's a chance that something good is going to happen. If you don't have a brilliant screenplay, then you either have amazing actors who give you the chance to improve whatever is on the page, or an interesting director who has enough faith in the project that they can carry it through and get it somewhere.

I think you get out of film school what you put into it. If you don't care about making movies, film school will do you no good.

Most writers are unhappy with film adaptations of their work, and rightly so. 'Field of Dreams,' however, caught the spirit and essence of 'Shoeless Joe' while making the necessary changes to make the work more visual.

Taking a comic strip character is very hard to write. Because comics are meant to work in one page, to work in frames with minimalistic dialogue. And a lot of it is left to the imagination of the reader. To do that in film, you've got to be a little more explanatory. And that requires a good screenplay and good dialogue.

You know, I feel like my job is to write a book. Then filmmakers come and they make a movie. And they're two really different art forms.

I'm not of the opinion that the next logical step for a book is for it to be made into a film.

A script is only as good as the director who's making it.

I don't think I'm the right man to adapt a book.

There were many films made for both cinema and television, and in general I don't connect them very much with our books. I have one favorite: 'The Man on the Roof' by director Bo Widerberg, which was based on 'The Abominable Man.'

I think it's always good for the author to stay a good cattle prod's distance from the actual moviemaking.

Sometimes when I think how good my book can be, I can hardly breathe.

Films are always different from books.

I think the one that's going to be the hardest to make into a film is the one that's probably going to be made into a film, which is 'The Art of Racing in the Rain.' I mean, it's narrated by a dog. How do you do that? But hopefully we'll get to see.

I have written my own screen version of Pern, but had no buyers yet.

I'm all for whatever transitions the book properly to a movie.