Robert McKee Quotes

we secretly enjoy rush hour; drive-time is the only time most of us are ever alone.

All writing is discipline, but screenwriting is a drill sergeant.

Love relationships are political. An old Gypsy expression goes: “He who confesses first loses.” The first person to say “I love you” has lost because the other, upon hearing it, immediately smiles a knowing smile, realizing that he’s the one loved, so he now controls the relationship.

You might forget the day you saw a dead body in the street, but the death of Hamlet haunts you forever.

Story Event creates meaningful change in the life situation of a character that is expressed and experienced in terms of a value and ACHIEVED THROUGH CONFLICT.

Secure writers don't sell first drafts. They patiently rewrite until the script is as director-ready, as actor-ready as possible. Unfinished work invites tampering, while polished, mature work seals its integrity.

"When two friends meet on the street and talk about the weather, don't we know that theirs isn't a conversation about the weather? What is being said? "I'm your friend. Let's take a minute out of our busy day and stand here in each other's presence and reaffirm that we are indeed friends." They might talk about sports, weather, shopping...anything. But the text is not the subtext. What is said and done is not what is thought and felt. The scene is not about what it seems to be about. Screen dialogue, therefore, must have the swing of everyday talk but content well above normal."

The substance of story is the gap that splits open between what a human being expects to happen when he takes an action and what really does happen; the rift between expectation and result, probability and necessity.

We often see films with a cast of excellent characters...except one, who's dreadful. We wonder why until we realize that the writer hates this character. He's trivializing and insulting this role at every opportunity. And I'll never understand this. How can a writer hate his own character? It's his baby. How can he hate what he gave life? Embrace all your creations, especially the bad people. They deserve love like everyone else.

We cannot ask which is more important, structure or character, because structure is character; character is structure.

"When society repeatedly experiences glossy, hollowed-out, pseudo-stories, it degenerates. We need true satires and tragedies, dramas and comedies that shine a cean light into the dingy corners of the human psyche and society. If not, as Yeats warned, "...the centre can not hold.

Story is metaphor for life and life is lived in time.

But I know that if you can't play all the instruments in the orchestra of story, no matter what music may be in your imagination, you're condemned to hum the same old tune.

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

The repetition of “serious” emotion is, in fact, a favorite comic device.