Willy Wonka Quotes

I, Willy Wonka, have decided to allow five children – just five, mind you, and no more – to visit my factory this year.

Mr Willy Wonka can make marshmallows that taste of violets, and rich caramels that change colour every ten seconds as you suck them, and little feathery sweets that melt away deliciously the moment you put them between your lips. He can make chewing-gum that never loses its taste, and sugar balloons that you can blow up to enormous sizes before you pop them with a pin and gobble them up. And, by a most secret method, he can make lovely blue birds' eggs with black spots on them, and when you put one of these in your mouth, it gradually gets smaller and smaller until suddenly there is nothing left except a tiny little DARKRED sugary baby bird sitting on the tip of your tongue.

We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.

For some moments in life, there are no words.

You ever see Willy Wonka? You know that part where the girl eats an everlasting gobstopper sweet and it tastes of everything? Like chicken soup and roast beef and blueberry pie all rolled into one? Well, that's exactly what Shapeshifter blood tastes like...

Ohmigod! This place is so cool!” This was Tracy, who was sashaying into the warehouse looking around like she just hit the candy garden with chocolate stream at Willy Wonka’s. Her eyes caught site of Elvira who was in the kitchen. “Hey girl! What’s up?” “Job satisfaction, beanpole, what’s up with you,” Elvira replied on a huge smile thus taking the sting out of her nickname for Tracy (I hoped). If Cam was yin to Tracy’s yang, Elvira was yang to all of our yins.

There's no earthly way of knowing Which direction we are going There's no knowing where we're rowing Or which way the river's flowing Is it raining, is it snowing? Is a hurricane a-blowing? - uh! Not a speck of light is showing So the danger must be growing Are the fires of Hell a-glowing? Is the grisly reaper mowing? Yes! The danger must be growing For the rowers keep on rowing And they're certainly not showing Any signs that they are slowing! A-aa-aaa-aaaah!

How did you know about my candy stash?” Vincent innocently shrugged. “I needed tape and stumbled across your Willy Wonka drawer

My mind was no longer functioning on a rational level. For fuck's sake, who needed rational when they boarded a train to insanity? All that was missing were the Oompa Loompas and Willy-fucking-Wonka.

I feel a bit like the Willy Wonka of Neon, if you could eat neon, chocolate would be the next best thing

Chewing gum is really gross, chewing gum I hate the most

You'll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that - Willy Wonka

For the love of all the Gobstoppers in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, would he please just leave her alone?

I`ve always felt a kinship with Willy Wonka. Even at that age, I could tell that he was a flawed hero, an icon for the forbidden. The forbidden in this case was chocolate, a metaphor for indulgence and anything you`re not supposed to have, be it sex, drugs, alcohol or pornography.

WILLY WONKA’S FAMOUS CHOCOLATE FACTORY IS OPENING AT LAST!

In the end, Charlie Bucket won a chocolate factory. But Willy Wonka had something even better, a family. And one thing was absolutely certain - life had never been sweeter. ~ from the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Andrew tasted like peppermint and chocolate, smells like the smoke from the wood in the fireplace, and feels like sunshine. If you put all my favorite things in a Willy Wonka machine, I'm pretty sure Andrew Hollis is the candy that would come out.

Welcome, let’s all prepare to be whisked to the magical land of candy. Be warned, candy is very addicting and at Jubilee’s the candy is the tastiest in the world,

Shira turned and blew kisses toward her clients who had pressed their faces against the salon window like children in a candy store and she their Willy Wonka of beauty.

He saw Mr. Otterson as the Willy Wonka of produce.

Clarissa apparently believed that if you didn’t have to roll a guest out of your house like the blueberry girl in Willy Wonka, you were a bad hostess.

We are the MUSIC makers. We are the DREAMERS of DREAMS.

Count to three.. and you'll be, in a world of pure imagination...

I hope it lasts.

a Willy-Wonka-goes-to-Wall-Street wardrobe,

Do you know who can take the sunrise, and sprinkle it with dew?

I’m not Willy Wonka, so I don’t sugarcoat shit. “You’re pushing fifty, Dad.

Willy Wonka had his chocolate factory where he tortured and rewarded children. I have my writing factory where I torture and reward children. Only on paper, of course.

Spencer felt as though he’d stepped into the Willy Wonka chocolate factory and he’d just been given a golden ticket. One that might just help him finally get the girl.

he’d expected her to feel like heaven, plus nirvana, plus that scene in Willy Wonka where Charlie starts to fly.

And he’d expected her to feel like heaven, plus nirvana, plus that scene in Willy Wonka where Charlie starts to fly.

I tried to bend over and touch my toes this morning,” I tell the girls. “I tipped over, hit my head on the desk, and then had to call for Nana to get up. I’m literally the size of an Oompa Loompa.” “You’re the most beautiful Oompa Loompa in the world,” Hope declares. “Because she’s not orange.” “Oompa Loompas were orange?” I try to conjure up a mental picture of them but can only recall their white overalls. Carin purses her lips. “Were they supposed to be candies? Like orange slices? Or maybe candy corn?” “They were squirrels,” Hope informs us. “No way,” we both say at once. “Yes way. I read it on the back of a Laffy Taffy when I was like ten. It was a trivia question and I’d just seen the movie. I was terrified of squirrels for years afterwards.” “Shit. Learn something new every day.” I push my body upright, a task that takes a certain amount of upper body strength these days, and toddle over to inspect the crib. “I don’t believe you,” Carin tells Hope. “The movie is about candy. It’s called Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Since when are squirrels candies? I can buy into a bunny because, you know, the chocolate Easter bunnies, but not a squirrel.” “Look it up, Careful. I’m right.” “You’re ruining my childhood.” Carin turns to me. “Don’t do this to your daughter.” “Raise her to believe Oompa Loompas are squirrels?” “Yes

She'd make a game of it where she'd relax all the little bits of her body, starting with her fingers and toes and working in toward the center. She had to make herself limp and draw the hurt and want into a tight core inside, each time adding another layer to that core, so that if somebody came along and cut her open, they'd find inside a shining, perfect pearl, hard as any Willy Wonka jawbreaker.

An older boy pointed. “Look,” he told his friend. “It’s Violet Beauregarde!” That was the bratty girl in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory who turned blue and ballooned into a huge ball. I was puffy because they’d pumped me up with steroids to get me ready for surgery. I ran to Mom, who was sitting on the edge. I stuffed my face in her breasts. “What is it, Bee?” “They called me it,” I squeaked. “It?” Mom’s eyes were across from mine. “Violet Beauregarde,” I managed to say, then burst into fresh tears. The mean boys huddled nearby, looking over, hoping my mom wouldn’t rat them out to their moms. Mom called to them, “That’s really original, I wish I’d thought of that.” I can pinpoint that as the single happiest moment of my life, because I realized then that Mom would always have my back. It made me feel giant. I raced back down the concrete ramp, faster than I ever had before, so fast I should have fallen, but I didn’t fall, because Mom was in the world.

the old people told; and thus, for perhaps half an hour every night, this room would become a happy place, and the whole family would forget that it was hungry and poor. One evening, when Charlie went in to see his grandparents, he said to them, “Is it really true that Wonka’s Chocolate Factory is the biggest in the world?” “True?” cried all four of them at once. “Of course it’s true! Good heavens, didn’t you know that? It’s about fifty times as big as any other!” “And is Mr. Willy Wonka really the cleverest chocolate maker in the world?” “My dear boy,” said Grandpa Joe, raising himself up a little higher on his pillow, “Mr. Willy Wonka is the most

For some moments in life, there are no words.

If either one of you cross paths with me again? I'll castrate the both of you! It won't be Dick N' Peter's, it'll be Eunuchs N' Pussies.

If either one of you cross paths with me again? I'll castrate the both of you! It won't be Dick N' Peter's, it'll be Eunuchs N' Pussies.

Jesus! You got that retard strength!

I suggest you stay the fuck out of this if you got any sense? Although, you don't strike me as the type that's got to many brain cells.

Come into my store will ya? Thought I'd just hand over my Wonka bars huh?! Arrogant thieving brat.

The Oompa Loompas were hired to replace us, and throw us over the fuck'n factory wall! -Joe Bucket (Grandpa Joe)

Unlike Wonka, we didn't love chocolate enough to stick it in our ass or use it as some sort of alternate form of lubrication. -Joe Bucket (Grandpa Joe)

They hurled my body over the wall like a sack of potatoes.

So Wonka done asked me to do a hit on some old fuck'a. Tricky part was, he was in the big-house. Can't recall his name real well, I think it was Joe Pale or somethin? No, no it was Bucket!

Mr Wonka Goes Too Far The last time we saw Charlie, he was riding high above his home town in the Great Glass Lift. Only a short while before, Mr Wonka had told him that the whole gigantic fabulous Chocolate Factory was his, and now our small friend was returning in triumph with his entire family to take over. The passengers in the Lift (just to remind you) were: Charlie Bucket, our hero. Mr Willy Wonka, chocolate-maker extraordinary. Mr and Mrs Bucket, Charlie’s father and mother. Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine, Mr Bucket’s father and mother. Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina, Mrs Bucket’s father and mother. Grandma Josephine, Grandma Georgina and Grandpa George were still in bed, the bed having been pushed on board just before take-off. Grandpa Joe, as you remember, had got out of bed to go around the Chocolate Factory with Charlie. The Great Glass Lift was a thousand feet up and cruising nicely. The sky was brilliant blue. Everybody on board was wildly excited at the thought of going to live in the famous Chocolate Factory. Grandpa Joe was singing. Charlie was jumping up and down. Mr and Mrs Bucket were smiling for the first time in years, and the three old ones in the bed were grinning at one another with pink toothless gums. ‘What in the world keeps this crazy thing up in the air?’ croaked Grandma Josephine. ‘Madam,’ said Mr Wonka, ‘it is not a lift any longer. Lifts only go up and down inside buildings. But now that it has taken us up into the sky, it has become an ELEVATOR. It is THE GREAT GLASS ELEVATOR.

A mysterious and marvelous confectionary utopia, a colorful interior world filled with wonder and sweet marvel. Most of the actors hadn’t seen the Chocolate Room prior to filming, and even my brief peek didn’t prepare me for the sheer magnitude of this set.

Glad to know the wreckage of my life is providing ample entertainment for the gawkers. The thing is, it’s not epic or major. It’s miserable. I’ve lost my fiancé, job, home, and now I have an international reputation as the pink-haired hussie who hooked-up with Willie Wonka.

Then at last, when he could stand it no longer, he would peel back a tiny bit of the paper wrapping at one corner to expose a tiny bit of chocolate, and then he would take a tiny nibble – just enough to allow the lovely sweet taste to spread out slowly over his tongue. The next day, he would take another tiny nibble, and so on, and so on. And in this way, Charlie would make his sixpenny bar of birthday chocolate last him for more than a month. But I haven’t yet told you about the one awful thing that tortured little Charlie, the lover of chocolate, more than anything else. This thing, for him, was far, far worse than seeing slabs of chocolate in the shop windows or watching other children munching bars of creamy chocolate right in front of him. It was the most terrible torturing thing you could imagine, and it was this: In the town itself, actually within sight of the house in which Charlie lived, there was an ENORMOUS CHOCOLATE FACTORY! Just imagine that! And it wasn’t simply an ordinary enormous chocolate factory, either. It was the largest and most famous in the whole world! It was WONKA’S FACTORY, owned by a man called Mr Willy Wonka, the greatest inventor and maker of chocolates that there has ever been. And what a tremendous, marvellous place it was! It had huge iron gates leading into it, and a high wall surrounding it, and smoke belching from its chimneys, and strange whizzing sounds coming from deep inside it. And outside the walls, for half a mile around in every direction, the air was scented with the heavy rich smell of melting chocolate! Twice a day, on his way to and from school, little Charlie Bucket had to walk right past the gates of the factory. And every time he went by, he would begin to walk very, very slowly, and he would hold his nose high in the air and take long deep sniffs of the gorgeous chocolatey smell all around him. Oh, how he loved that smell! And oh, how he wished he could go inside the factory and see what it was like!

Daniel.” “Ma.” “Are you well?” She was angry. If the straight-to-voicemail treatment for the last week hadn’t tipped me off, her tone now was a dead giveaway. “I’m great,” I lied. “And how are you?” “Fine.” I laughed, silently. If she heard me laugh, she’d have my balls. “Did you get my messages?” “Yes. Thank you for calling.” I waited for a minute, for her to say more. She didn’t. “I leave you twenty-one messages, three calls a day, and that’s all you got for me?” “I’m not going to apologize for needing some time to cool off and I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Who do you think I am? Willy Wonka? You missed my birthday.” She sniffed. And these weren’t crocodile tears either. I’d hurt her feelings. Ahh, there it is. The acrid taste of guilt. “Ma . . .” “I don’t ask for a lot. I love you. I love my children. I want you to call me on my birthday.” “I know.” I was clutching my chest so my heart didn’t fall out and bleed all over the grass. “What could have been so important that you couldn’t spare a few minutes for your mother? I was so worried.” “I did call you—” “Don’t shit on a plate and tell me it’s fudge, Daniel. You called after midnight.” I hadn’t come up with a plausible lie for why I hadn’t called on her birthday, because I wasn’t a liar. I hated lying. Premeditated lying, coming up with a story ahead of time, crafting it, was Seamus’s game. If I absolutely had to lie, I subscribed to spur-of-the-moment lying; it made me less of a soulless maggot. “That’s true, Ma. But I swear I—” “Don’t you fucking swear, Daniel. Don’t you fucking do that. I raised you kids better.” “Sorry, sorry.” “What was so important, huh?” She heaved a watery sigh. “I thought you were in a ditch, dying somewhere. I had Father Matthew on standby to give you your last rights. Was your phone broken?” “No.” “Did you forget?” Her voice broke on the last word and it was like being stabbed. The worst. “No, I sw—ah, I mean, I didn’t forget.” Lie. Lying lie. Lying liar. “Then what?” I grimaced, shutting my eyes, taking a deep breath and said, “I’m married.” Silence. Complete fucking silence. I thought maybe she wasn’t even breathing. Meanwhile, in my brain: Oh. Shit. What. The. Fuck. Have. I. Done. . . . However. However, on the other hand, I was married. I am married. Not a lie. Yeah, we hadn’t had the ceremony yet, but the paperwork was filed, and legally speaking, Kat and I were married. I listened as my mom took a breath, said nothing, and then took another. “Are you pulling my leg with this?” On the plus side, she didn’t sound sad anymore. “No, no. I promise. I’m married. I—uh—was getting married.” “Wait a minute, you got married on my birthday?” Uh . . . “Uh . . .” “Daniel?” “No. We didn’t get married on your birthday.” Shit. Fuck. “We’ve been married for a month, and Kat had an emergency on Wednesday.” Technically, not lies. “That’s her name? Cat?” “Kathleen. Her name is Kathleen.” “Like your great aunt Kathleen?” Kat wasn’t a thing like my great aunt. “Yeah, the name is spelled the same.” “Last month? You got married last month?” She sounded bewildered, like she was having trouble keeping up. “Is she—is she Irish?” “No.” “Oh. That’s okay. Catholic?” Oh jeez, I really hadn’t thought this through. Maybe it was time for me to reconsider my spur-of-the-moment approach to lying and just surrender to being a soulless maggot. “No. She’s not Catholic.” “Oh.” My mom didn’t sound disappointed, just a little surprised and maybe a little worried. “Daniel, I—you were married last month and I’m only hearing about it now? How long have you known this woman?” I winced. “Two and a half years.” “Two and a half years?” she screeched...

The idea of simply trotting around the world with John, for a year or more, is obviously, what Willy Wonka would have put in a special chocolate bar for me.

Willy Wonka shows a smile and a coat on his Brown Bar.

Mr. Lemoncello is a lot like Willy Wonka,” said Kyle. “You mean crazy?” said Akimi. “I prefer the term ‘eccentric’.” “And Dr. Zinchenko is his Oompa-Loompa,” said Sierra. Everybody started giggling. “Nah,” Akimi joked, “she’s too tall.” “And not nearly orange enough,” added Miguel.

Your elbows are blushing,” he tells me, a smile growing as he re-pours. “You’re like Violet from Willy Wonka, only you ate a magic cherry.

This is the secret adults don’t want us to know: They are just children with sex. It is not at all like the movies where they move slowly in the shadows between satin sheets. When we are not around, they gorge on candy and comics and dirty jokes, just as we do, only more so. There is nothing mature about their desires. Their mouths are rimmed in chocolate. They writhe in whipped cream. They fuck like Willy Wonka.

Hey, maybe we can even convince her to slather some Three Musketeers on her vagina. We'll just tell her you have a Willy Wonka fetish,

She felt so good underneath,even better than he'd expected.(And he'd expected her to feel like heaven,plus nirvana,plus that scene in Willy Wonka where Charlie starts to fly.)

Wow. He’s like sexy Willy Wonka.

Ihope it last.

You've messed with the wrong god if you get keys to willy wonka chocolate factory and diabetes the same day..

Create a Chocolate Factory There may be as many different types of playrooms as there are families, but every one of them should have the following design element: lots of choices. A place for drawing. A place for painting. Musical instruments. A wardrobe hanging with costumes. Blocks. Picture books. Tubes and gears. Anything where a child can be safely let loose, joyously free to explore whatever catches her fancy. Did you see the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? If so, you may have been filled with wonder at the chocolate plant, complete with trees, lawns, and waterfalls—a totally explorable, nonlinear ecology. That’s what I mean. I am focusing on artistic pursuits because kids who are trained in the arts

I don’t get it,” she said. “I mean, why teenagers? Why pick the most immature people on earth to handle such a huge responsibility?” Driggs looked up at the stars, then back at Lex. “You know Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?” Lex stared. “The world of pure imagination?” he added. “I’m familiar with the world of pure imagination,” Lex said dryly. “I’m just skeptical as to how manufacturing candy is in any way similar to reaping mortal souls.” “You know how at the end, Willy Wonka gives Charlie the factory?” Driggs went on. “Do you remember the reason he chose a child?” “Yeah, he said adults would want to do everything their own way, whereas a child—” “Would learn all the secrets,” said Driggs, “and keep them secret.” He flicked a pebble off the roof. “I mean, now that you’ve seen what really goes on here, have you thought for even a second of ratting us out?” “No, but—” The wordless anxiety that had been pumping through her veins ever since Uncle Mort touched that old woman came spilling out all at once. “I just find it disturbing that people—we ordinary, mortal, dumbass people—are in charge of all this. And we’ve covered it up for, what, millennia? You really expect me to believe that?” “Just because it’s the biggest secret in the history of the world doesn’t make it any less true.” Even Lex couldn’t think of a snarky answer to this. “Did I just blow your mind?” Driggs asked. “I think I just blew your mind.” With that, he pulled out a handful of at least a dozen Oreos from his pocket and shoved three into his mouth

She tested the peppermint cocoa. The rich, dark liquid warmed her tongue and put a shine in her green eyes as she swallowed. She sighed. "I would live inside this if I could." "You and Willy Wonka." Anna set her mug in the sink and gathered ingredients for the truffles. Today she thought she'd make a variety filled with dark chocolate, raspberry, peanut butter, or almond cream. "I wish he was real." "I bet you wish you had a golden ticket too," Eli said. Anna looked over her shoulder, and they shared a smile that made her insides feel hot and gooey like the center of a fresh cinnamon bun.

Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple

Oh, he’s Albus Dumbledore, Willy Wonka, and Jesus Christ all rolled into one.

You’re like Violet from Willy Wonka, only you ate a magic cherry.

Dün babamın evine gittim," dedi. Gözlerim fal taşı gibi açıldı. "Öyle mi?" "Evet. Beni ve Owen'ı yemeğe davet etti. Ben gitmeyecektim ama Owen gelmemi isteyince hayır diyemedim." Uzanıp başımı göğüsüne koydum "Nasıl geçti?" "Iyiydi sanırım. Güzel bir evi var." Bir şey söylemedim; devam etmesini bekledim. Çok uzun gibi gelen bir duraksamanin ardından konuştu. "Hani bana izlettigin eski bir film vardı ya, zavallı çocuk burnunu cama dayayıp içeri bakıyordu? Işte öyle hissettim." Bahsettiği "eski film", Willy Wonka ve Çikolata Fabrikası'ydı. Charlie'nin diğer çocukların şeker dükkanında kendilerinden geçmelerini izlediği ama parası olmadığı için içeri göremediği sahneydi.

He'd even sent her a random text that morning--- a link to a fanfic story involving them and Willy Wonka's R-rated chocolate factory. He thought it would make her laugh. She'd sent the skull emoji back, so...

I found out that Willy Wonka had failed at the box office. It seems strange now to think that Roald Dahl’s morality story wasn’t embraced. I was told that many mothers thought the lessons in the movie were too cruel for children to understand. As the years since have proven, children don’t have any trouble understanding the movie—they crave to know what the boundaries are. It was the mothers who had a little difficulty.

They were stained purple, and I suddenly had visions of turning fully purple, like Violet turned blue in the Willy Wonka movie.

We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams

As Henniger conducts a tour of his factory, he brims with pride. He points to the ventilation system that sucks air from fourteen welding tables through tuba-size funnels into a series of Willy Wonka pipes overhead. “Most welding shops are dirty,” he says. “Ours isn’t. I put in a whole system to pull out the dust so these guys have clean air to breathe.” He leans over and sweeps his index finger across the floor. It comes up spotless. Henniger smiles, and casts his gaze across a continent of polished concrete. “You can see it shining,” he says. “We have a Zamboni going around the floor all day.” One can only imagine what kind of Christmas morning moment must it be for a thirty-something guy to take delivery of his own Zamboni.

Hodge admired Wilder’s performance but didn't want to reproduce it - for practical as well as artistic reasons. ‘I'm working in a different medium,’ he says. ‘I really admire Gene Wilder's version, but his energy - that druggy, transcendental, gently enigmatic thing - is different from what I require to sing huge songs and fill a theatre full of children. There's a different engine powering a big West End musical.

As 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon would say, ‘I want to go to there.

Wilder's Wonka is, as in the book, the embellishment and excitement round the edges - his batty, barmy, nutty, screwy, dippy, dotty, daffy, goofy, beany, buggy, wacky, loony nature dazzling and drawing our attention but, narratively speaking, remaining decoration.

Perhaps it is only someone who has experienced first-hand what family can and should mean who can be so ruthless when they write about those who fall short of producing the ideal for their offspring.

The idea of a child (of whatever age) forgiving a bad parent, and the unthinkableness of a happy ending without it, is very modern and not one that has much to do with Roald's world view at all. It is idealistic and sentimental, and is more concerned with relieving adult anxieties (there is nothing we can do so bad that it cannot ultimately be undone) than entertaining child viewers/readers or slaking their thirst for natural justice.

This book is written for all those who loved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when they were young, and those who love it now. It's for anyone who wants to know a bit more about how it came to be, how it managed to permeate readers' worlds and the world at large, and how it has endured so happily for fifty years - and counting.

A good children's book teaches the uses of words, the joy of playing with language. Above all, it helps children learn not to be frightened of books. Once they get through a book and enjoy it, they realize that books are something they can cope with. If my books can help children become readers, then I feel I have accomplished something important.

You know that old movie you made me watch, where the poor kid was standing outside with his nose pressed to the glass? That's how I felt.' / 'That old movie' he’s referring to is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, when Charlie is watching all the kids go hog wild at the candy store but he can’t go inside because he doesn’t have any money.

We are the music-makers and we are the dreamers of dreams

the chocolate bar I had a Willy Wonka moment.’ ‘Is that secret code

Gonna pick up the boy a present. He needs something to hope for in this world, besides tasteless soup...And a cold floor!

These friends or cretins rather are called Oompa Loompas and they got themselves a madder lust for chocolate than Wonka.

Don't you know Joe Peck? A little nonsense. Now an then. Is relished by the wisest men.

Nil Desperandum Dick, across the desert lies the promised land.

If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it.

Movies That Grew Me Spirit of the Beehive—Victor Erice Walkabout—Nicolas Roeg Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus)—Marcel Camus Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory—Mel Stuart Ratcatcher—Lynne Ramsay Throne of Blood—Akira Kurosawa It’s a Wonderful Life—Frank Capra Drugstore Cowboy—Gus Van Sant The Deer Hunter—Michael Cimino The Wizard of Oz—Victor Fleming To Live—Zhang Yimou Persepolis—Marjane Satrapi

When I make my first entrance, I’d like to come out of the door carrying a cane and then walk towards the crowd with a limp. After the crowd sees that Willy Wonka is a cripple, they all whisper to themselves and then become deathly quiet. As I walk towards them, my cane sinks into one of the cobblestones I’m walking on and stands straight up, by itself . . . but I keep on walking, until I realize that I no longer have my cane. I start to fall forward, and just before I hit the ground, I do a beautiful forward somersault and bounce back up, to great applause.” “. . . Why do you want to do that?” “Because from that time on, no one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth.

I held my father’s hand on the ride home that night. After about half an hour of cheerful bantering back and forth, he got quiet. Then he said, “I always told you not to put all your eggs in one basket. Since you were a little boy, I warned you not to put all your eggs in one basket. Now I’m glad you did.” What I didn’t have the heart to tell him was that Start the Revolution Without Me and Quackser Fortune had both failed at the box office, and if Willy Wonka also failed, I didn’t know where my next job would come from, or even if there would be a next job.

an utterly spellbinding slice of earth, like no place I’d even seen”—a Willy Wonka world of lime-green pools and pink crystal towers and subterranean waterfalls.

I was the Willy Wonka of slip-ups