166 Quotes by Robert McKee

Most of life's actions are within our reach, but decisions take willpower.

We shape the telling to fit the substance, rework the substance to support the design.

Quality storytelling inspires quality dialogue.

Dialogue concentrates meaning; conversation dilutes it.

Anxious, inexperienced writers obey rules. Rebellious, unschooled writers break rules. Artists master the form.

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.

Scholarly acumen sharpens taste and judgment, but we must never mistake criticism for art. Intellectual analysis, however heady, will not nourish the soul.

In life two negatives don't make a positive. Double negatives turn positive only in math and formal logic. In life things just get worse and worse and worse.

Angry contradiction of the patriarch is not creativity; it's delinquency calling for attention. Difference for the sake of difference is as empty an achievement as slavishly following the commercial imperative.