Quote

I'll give you the same advice I give my children: Never take advice from anybody.

Robert Altman

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Robert Altman
Age: 81 †
Born: 1925
Born: February 20
Died: 2006
Died: November 20
Film Director
Film Editor
Film Producer
Librettist
Screenwriter
Theatrical Director
Writer
Kansas City
Missouri
Giving
Children
Never
Advice
Anybody
Give
Take

More quotes by Robert Altman

Image
Words don't tell you what people are thinking. Rarely do we use words to really tell. We use words to sell people or to convince people or to make them admire us. It's all disguise. It's all hidden -- a secret language.
Robert Altman
Image
There was not a lot of dialogue. The titles were just to keep you up. It's the visual stimulation that hits the audience. That's the reason for film. Otherwise, we might as well turn the light out and call it radio.
Robert Altman
Image
Chance is another name that we give to our mistakes. And all of the best things in my films are mistakes.
Robert Altman
Image
Maybe there's a chance to get back to grown-up films. Anything that uses humor and dramatic values to deal with human emotions and gets down to what people are to people.
Robert Altman
Image
I insist that they do what they became actors to do. I want them to create something and not just hit marks and say words. So they all love that because they're playing. It's called playacting. Their contributions are not only welcomed, but are accepted and used.
Robert Altman
Image
Making a movie is like chipping away at a stone. You take a piece off here, you take a piece off there and when you're finished, you have a sculpture. You know that there's something in there, but you're not sure exactly what it is until you find it.
Robert Altman
Image
I was a heavy drinker, but the alcohol affected my heart rather than my liver. So I stopped. I smoke grass now. I say that to everybody, because marijuana should be legalized. It's ridiculous that it isn't. If at the end of the day I feel like smoking a joint I do it. It changes the perception of what I've been through all day.
Robert Altman
Image
I've had it-the agencies, the winking, the networks, the ratings. Anyone who thinks TV is an art medium is crazy-it's an advertising medium.
Robert Altman
Image
Retirement? You're talking about death, right?
Robert Altman
Image
The Oscar for the films, it'd be nice. But I don't make those kind of films, and I don't think that will ever happen.
Robert Altman
Image
You will never see'Altman's Great Film of the Seventies: The Director's Cut' because you have never seen a film of mine that wasn't the director's cut. I have never permitted it.
Robert Altman
Image
I have never made a movie that's attracted a 14-year-old boy.
Robert Altman
Image
I like audiences to crane their necks.
Robert Altman
Image
Most of my films I call arena films. I deal with a confined area -- an arena -- and I try to cover every aspect of it.
Robert Altman
Image
I love fishing. You put that line in the water and you don't know what's on the other end. Your imagination is under there.
Robert Altman
Image
That wasn't an ending. It was just a stopping point.
Robert Altman
Image
I don't know what Altmanesque means, though I suppose I'm flattered by it.
Robert Altman
Image
Happy endings are absolutely ludicrous, they're not true at all. We see the guy carry the girl across the threshold and everybody lives happily ever after -- that's bullshit. Three weeks later he's beating her up and she's suing for divorce and he's got cancer.
Robert Altman
Image
I want to see something that I've never seen before, so how can I tell that actor what that is? I'm not trying to construct a document or situation that is what I want, because what I want is something new to me.
Robert Altman
Image
What is an ending? There's no such thing. Death is the only ending.
Robert Altman