Robert McKee

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Story is morally neutral. It can express profound truth or propaganda. The two greatest political storytellers of the 20th Century were Winston Churchill and Adolph Hitler. Because storytelling is a form of persuasive jujitsu, and because world is full of black belt storytellers, the corporate leader has to train both his offensive and defensive moves
- Robert McKee
Collection: Moving
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The dirty secret of art is you don't have to show people your bad writing. That's what we have the delete key for.
- Robert McKee
Collection: Art
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Oh, by the way, I tend to use a lot of profanities. I do that for a reason: I like it.
- Robert McKee
Collection: Use
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Politics is the name we give to the orchestration of power in any society.
- Robert McKee
Collection: Names
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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
Collection: Math
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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...Deus ex machina is an insult because it is a lie.
- Robert McKee
Collection: Lying
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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
Collection: Soul
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In comedy laughter settles all arguments.
- Robert McKee
Collection: Laughter
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Aristotle said time is a measure of change, and this movie is about changing in time, through time, while remaining the same person. That's a philosophical paradox and a moral dilemma. But 'Casablanca' says it's possible. You can have both. That's what it means. And that's my wish for you: that you would have both.
- Robert McKee
Collection: Philosophical
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No civilization, including Plato's, has ever been destroyed because its citizens learned too much.
- Robert McKee
Collection: Plato
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Ninety percent of what we create is not our best work.
- Robert McKee
Collection: Ninety
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I cannot be a character in a bad movie. I can't be.
- Robert McKee
Collection: Character
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The students realize that it's their life I'm talking about: it's out of balance, they're struggling to put it into balance. How are they going to do it?
- Robert McKee
Collection: Struggle
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It seems to me that the civilized human being is a skeptic someone who believes nothing at face value.
- Robert McKee
Collection: Believe