Quote

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

Robert McKee

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Robert McKee
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: January 30
Author
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Detroit
Michigan
Form
Anxious
Master
Artists
Rules
Writers
Masters
Inexperienced
Break
Rebellious
Artist
Obey

More quotes by Robert McKee

Image
Story isn't a flight from reality but a vehicle that carries us on our search for reality.
Robert McKee
Image
I cannot be a character in a bad movie. I can't be.
Robert McKee
Image
Given the choice between trivial material brilliantly told versus profound material badly told, an audience will always choose the trivial told brilliantly.
Robert McKee
Image
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.
Robert McKee
Image
To connect to people at the deepest level, you need stories.
Robert McKee
Image
To get the truth, you want to get your own heart to pound while you write.
Robert McKee
Image
We rarely know where we are going writing is a discovery.
Robert McKee
Image
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.
Robert McKee
Image
Stories build cultures by answering the big questions.
Robert McKee
Image
A culture cannot evolve without honest, powerful storytelling. When a society repeatedly experiences glossy, hollowed-out, pseudo-stories, it degenerates. We need true satires and tragedies, dramas and comedies that shine a clean light into the dingy corners of the human psyche and society.
Robert McKee
Image
When you do enough research, the story almost writes itself. Lines of development spring loose and you'll have choices galore.
Robert McKee
Image
Influence is just persuasion in slow motion.
Robert McKee
Image
What happens is fact, not truth. Truth is what we think about what happens.
Robert McKee
Image
No civilization, including Plato's, has ever been destroyed because its citizens learned too much.
Robert McKee
Image
When people want to sound smart, they add syllables to words, words to sentences, sentences to paragraphs, paragraphs to books. They try to make up in quantity and complexity what they lack in quality. That's bullshit! They're just hiding their bullshit!
Robert McKee
Image
Stories are the currency of human relationships.
Robert McKee
Image
Most of life's actions are within our reach, but decisions take willpower.
Robert McKee
Image
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.
Robert McKee
Image
Talent without craft is like fuel without an engine, it burns wildly but accomplishes nothing.
Robert McKee
Image
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.
Robert McKee