Robert McKee Quotes

Creativity isn't learning the right answers but asking the strongest questions.

Stanislavski called this the “Magic if …,” the daydreamy hypothetical that floats through the mind, opening the door to the imagination where everything and anything seems possible.

When we peek behind the grinning mask of comic cynicism, we find a frustrated idealist. The comic sensibility wants the world to be perfect, but when it looks around, it finds greed, corruption, lunacy. The result is an angry and depressed artist. If you doubt that, ask one over for dinner. Every host in Hollywood has made that mistake: “Let’s invite some comedy writers to the party! That’ll brighten things up.” Sure… till the paramedics arrive. These angry idealists, however, know that if they lecture the world about what a rotten place it is, no one will listen. But if they trivialize the exalted, pull the trousers down on snobbery, if they expose society for its tyranny, folly, and greed, and get people to laugh, then maybe things will change. Or balance. So God bless comedy writers. What would life be like without them?

Deus ex machina not only erases all meaning and emotion, it's an insult to the audience. Each of us knows we must choose and act, for better or worse, to determine the meaning of our lives. No one and nothing coincidental will come along to take that responsibility from us, regardless of the injustices and chaos around us. You could be locked in a cell for the rest of your life for a crime you did not commit. But every morning you would still have to get up and make meaning. Do I bludgeon my brains against this wall or do I find some way to get through my days with value? Our lives are ultimately in our own hands. Deus ex machina is an insult because it is a lie.

an audience will always choose the trivial told brilliantly

"Language composed into dialogue offers a spectrum that runs from mental meanings at one end to sensual experiences at the other. For example, a character might call a singer's voice either "lousy" or "sour." Both terms make sense, but "lousy" is a dead metaphor that once meant "covered with lice." "Sour" still has life. The moment the audience hears "sour," their lips start to pucker. Which line stirs the most inner feeling: "She walks like a model" or "She moves like a slow, hot song"? Dialogue can express the same idea in countless ways, but in general, the more sensory the trope, the deeper and more memorable its effect."

The Law of Diminishing Returns is true of everything in life, except sex, which seems endlessly repeatable with effect.

First, the discovery of a world we do not know.

Posicionar o público não é algo novo. Shakespeare não chamou sua peça de Hamlet, chamou-a de A Tragédia de Hamlet, Príncipe da Dinamarca. Ele deu a comédias títulos como Muito Barulho Por Nada e A Comédia dos Erros, de modo que, a cada tarde no Teatro Globe, o público elisabetano estava psicologicamente preparado para chorar ou rir.

Un ACONTECIMIENTO NARRATIVO crea un cambio en la situación de vida de un personaje, tiene significado y se expresa y experimenta en términos de VALOR.

an ending must be both “inevitable and unexpected.

A beautifully told story is a symphonic unity in which structure, setting, character, genre, and idea meld seamlessly. To find their harmony, the writer must study the elements of story as if they were instruments of an orchestra — first separately, then in concert.

A STORY must obey its own internal laws of probability.

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.

Second, once inside this alien world, we find ourselves. Deep within these characters and their conflicts we discover our own humanity.