Robert McKee Quotes

If the story you're telling, is the story you're telling, you're in deep shit.

When talented people write badly, it's generally for one of two reasons: Either they're blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove of they're driven by an emotion they must express. When talented people write well, it is generally for this reason: They're moved by a desire to touch the audience.

All writing is discipline, but screenwriting is a drill sergeant.

What happens is fact, not truth. Truth is what we think about what happens.

No civilization, including Plato's, has ever been destroyed because its citizens learned too much.

Story is metaphor for life and life is lived in time.

Do research. Feed your talent. Research not only wins the war on cliche, it's the key to victory over fear and it's cousin, depression.

Politics is the name we give to the orchestration of power in any society.

The Law of Diminishing Returns is true of everything in life, except sex, which seems endlessly repeatable with effect.

True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure - the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character's essential nature.

A fine work of art - music, dance, painting, story - has the power to silence the chatter in the mind and lift us to another place.

In a world of lies and liars, an honest work of art is always an act of social responsibility.

No matter our talent, we all know in the midnight of our souls that 90 percent of what we do is less than our best.

Good story' means something worth telling that the world wants to hear. Finding this is your lonely task...But the love of a good story, of terrific characters and a world driven by your passion, courage, and creative gifts is still not enough. Your goal must be a good story well told.