Robert McKee Quotes

Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.

What is the worst possible thing that could happen to my protagonist? How could that turn out to be the best possible thing that could happen to him?

The audience wants to be taken to the limit, to where all questions are answered, all emotion satisfied — the end of the line.

conflict is to storytelling what sound is to music.

The storyteller leads us into expectation, makes us think we understand, then cracks open reality

The writer works at his skills until knowledge shifts from the left side of the brain to the right,

No civilization, including Plato's, has ever been destroyed because its citizens learned too much.

an ending must be both “inevitable and unexpected.

Story is metaphor for life.

Write every day, line by line, page by page, hour by hour. Do this despite fear. For above all else, beyond imagination and skill, what the world asks of you is courage, courage to risk rejection, ridicule and failure. As you follow the quest for stories told with meaning and beauty, study thoughtfully but write boldly. Then, like the hero of the fable, your dance will dazzle the world.

Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.

A fine work of art - music, dance, painting, story - has the power to silence the chatter in the mind and lift us to another place.

La escena no trata de lo que parece tratar en la escena. Trata de otra cosa.

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.

When talented people write well, it is generally for this reason: They’re moved by a desire to touch the audience.