Paddy Chayefsky Quotes

Television is not the truth. Television is a goddamned amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers, a football players. We're in the boredom-killing business.

We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality — one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.

I used to adore my old man because he was always so kind. That's one of the most beautiful things I have in my life — the way my father and mother were. And my father was a real ugly man. So it doesn't matter if you look like a gorilla. You see, dogs like us, we ain't such dogs as we think we are.

Most movies, even the good ones, are based upon the extraordinary incident and the exceptional character. In writing the stage play, it is necessary to contrive exciting moments of theater. Marty and The Mother are bundled together in one discussion because each represents in its own way the sort of material that does best on television. They both deal with the world of the mundane, the ordinary, and the untheatrical. The main characters are typical, rather than exceptional; the situations are easily identifiable by the audience; and the relationships are as common as people. The essence of these two shows lies in their literal reality. I tried to write the dialogue as if it had been wire-tapped. I tried to envision the scenes as if a camera had been focused upon the unsuspecting characters and had caught them in an untouched moment of life.

CANTOR: And ye shall know Him in the strangest costumes and in the strangest places.

I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!

It is my current belief that the function of the writer is to give the audience some shred of meaning to the otherwise meaningless pattern of their lives. Our lives are filled with endless moments of stimulus and depression. We relate to each other in an incredibly complicated manner. Every fiber of relationship is worth a dramatic study. There is far more exciting drama in the reasons why a man gets married than in why he murders someone. The man who is unhappy in his job, the wife who thinks of a lover, the girl who wants to get into television, your father, mother, sister, brothers, cousins, friends - all these are better subjects for drama than Iago. What makes a man ambitious? Why does one girl always try to steal her kid sister's boy friends? Why does your uncle attend his annual class reunion faithfully every year? Why do you always find it depressing to visit your father? These are the substances of good television drama; and the deeper you probe into and examine the twisted semiformed complexes of emotional entanglements, the more exciting your writing becomes.

The writer [i.e. at rehearsals] should stay away from the actors except to let them know how much he is delighted by them. Actors, like everyone else in show business, need this constant reward. Don't flatter an actor unless he deserves it, but most professional actors, if they are responsive, will give you frequent cause for praise. Other than this, don't meddle with them. Actors will always come up to the writer, if he is around at rehearsals, and try to talk their parts out with him. The writer must refer them to the director. The director has his own idea of how to approach each actor, and advice from the writer will just confuse the actor and diffuse the director's authority.

There's lots of things I'd die for, Emily; my home, my family, my country. But that's love, not principle.

You're forever falling for men on their last nights on furlough. That's about the limit of your commitments, one night, a day, a month. You prefer lovers to husbands, hotels to homes. You'd rather grieve than live.

You don't like her. My mother don't like her. She's a dog and I'm a fat, ugly man. Well, all I know is I had a good time last night. I'm gonna have a good time tonight. If we have enough good times together, I'm gonna get down on my knees and I'm gonna beg that girl to marry me.

Now, the word for television drama is depth, the digging under the surface of life for the more profound truths of human relationships. I cannot help but feel that this is where drama is going. People are beginning to turn into themselves, looking for personal happiness. The jargon of introspection has become everyday conversation. The theater and all its sister mediums [i.e. film; TV; books] can only be a reflection of their times, and the drama of introspection is the drama that the people want to see.

War isn't a fraud, Charlie, it's very real. At least that's what you always tried to tell me, isn't it? That we shall never get rid of war by pretending it's unreal? It's the virtue of war that's the fraud, not war itself. It's the valor and the self-sacrifice and the goodness of war that needs the exposing. And here you are being brave and self-sacrificing, positively clanking with moral fervor, perpetuating the very things you detest merely to do "the right thing". Honestly, Charlie, your conversion to morality is really quite funny. All this time I've been terrified of becoming Americanized, and you, you silly ass, have turned into a bloody Englishman

MR FAULKNER: Give the facts a good look in the face, John.

MR HEALY: Are the people any wiser than they were a hundred years ago? Are they happier? This is the great American disease, boy! This passion for machines. Everybody is always inventing labor-saving devices. What's wrong with labor? A man's work is the sweetest thing he owns. It would do us a lot better to invent some labor-making devices. We've gone mad, boy, with this mad chase for comfort, and it's sure we're losing the very juice of living.
BOY: The world changes, Mister Healy. The old things go, and each of us must make peace with the new.