Sunset Boulevard

"I don't know how to say goodbye. I'm not good at it."

"You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big."

"The poor dope. He always wanted a pool. Well, in the end, he got a pool."

"I'm writing a screenplay about a ball player. A rookie. He makes good, see?"

"The studio system was my kingdom, and I was its eternal emperor."

"Love is a luxury for those without purpose."

"I taught her that the only truth is the one captured on film."

"The past does not frighten me; it worships me."

"Every film I made was an act of supreme will over chaos."

"I am not a man; I am a monument to cinema itself."

"The director creates worlds; the actor inhabits them."

"She tried to leave me. No one leaves me."

"I understood the human soul because I had none to mislead."

"The greatest tragedy is not failure, but irrelevance."

"Power without vision is mere tyranny; I had both."

"I have created beauty so perfect that the world could not bear it."

"The past haunts only those who cannot accept it."

"In the shadows of the studio, I became a ghost myself."

"She loved the man; I only needed the performance."

"Every frame I composed was a piece of my immortal soul."

"I gave her beauty; she wanted to give it back."

"The human heart is merely another prop to be moved at will."

"I have directed her life as I directed her performances."

"A true artist sacrifices everything on the altar of creation."

"The pictures are gone, but my vision remains eternal."

"I am a living contradiction—a perfectionist in an imperfect world."

"She wanted to escape me. She did not understand: there is no escape."

"Patience is the virtue of those who have nothing but time."

"I have more faith in the power of images than in God itself."

"The theater is a temple, and I was its high priest."