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Retirement? You're talking about death, right?

Robert Altman

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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
Talking
Death
Right
Retirement

More quotes by Robert Altman

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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.
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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.
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What is an ending? There's no such thing. Death is the only ending.
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We make too much of the good and too much of the bad.
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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.
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[M*A*S*H] didn't get released by FOX, it escaped.
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They'll never give me an Oscar. And I sincerely, honestly don't care. I always turn up when I'm nominated and it would be nice to get one, but to win one would be bad luck. It comes with too much expectation. It would be the end.
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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.
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I don't know what Altmanesque means, though I suppose I'm flattered by it.
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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.
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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.
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Why should I keep doing things that I've done before?
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I'll give you the same advice I give my children: Never take advice from anybody.
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If George W. Bush is elected president, I'm leaving for France.
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I like audiences to crane their necks.
Robert Altman
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Titanic I thought was the most dreadful piece of work I've ever seen in my entire life. Another film that I think is equally bad was American Beauty. So badly acted and directed. But people like that.
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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.
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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.
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If you have a child who is seven feet tall, you don't cut off his head or his legs. You buy him a bigger bed and hope he plays basketball.
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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.
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