Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes.
Source: In The Fourth 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said, ed. Robert Byrne, 1990.
-- John LeCarre, (Oct 19 1931-____), English novelist; He (aka David John Moore Cornwell) made George Smiley, antithesis of James Bond, famous in Call from the Dead, 1962; also wrote Little Drummer Girl, 1983 and Perfect Spy, 1986.