Create Yours

Top 120 Robert McKee Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 3 of 3

Robert McKee Quote: “A storyteller puts a friendly arm around the audience, saying: “Let me show you something.”

101. “A storyteller puts a friendly arm around the audience, saying: “Let me show you something.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “A STORY must obey its own internal laws of probability.”

102. “A STORY must obey its own internal laws of probability.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “The minimalist storyteller deliberately gives this last critical bit of work to the audience.”

103. “The minimalist storyteller deliberately gives this last critical bit of work to the audience.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “Superficial knowledge leads to a bland, monotonous telling. With authorial knowledge we can prepare a feast of pleasures. Or at the very least, add humor.”

104. “Superficial knowledge leads to a bland, monotonous telling. With authorial knowledge we can prepare a feast of pleasures. Or at the very least, add humor.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “For most writers, the knowledge they gain from reading and study equals or outweighs experience, especially if that experience goes unexamined.”

105. “For most writers, the knowledge they gain from reading and study equals or outweighs experience, especially if that experience goes unexamined.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “First we must dig deeply into life to uncover new insights, new refinements of value and meaning, then create a story vehicle that expresses our interpretation to an increasingly agnostic world.”

106. “First we must dig deeply into life to uncover new insights, new refinements of value and meaning, then create a story vehicle that expresses our interpretation to an increasingly agnostic world.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “A revered Hollywood axiom warns: “Movies are about their last twenty minutes.” In other words, for a film to have a chance in the world, the last act and its climax must be the most satisfying experience of all. For no matter what the first ninety minutes have achieved, if the final movement fails, the film will die over its opening weekend.”

107. “A revered Hollywood axiom warns: “Movies are about their last twenty minutes.” In other words, for a film to have a chance in the world, the last act and its climax must be the most satisfying experience of all. For no matter what the first ninety minutes have achieved, if the final movement fails, the film will die over its opening weekend.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “Do I bludgeon my brains against this wall or do I find some way to get through my days with value?”

108. “Do I bludgeon my brains against this wall or do I find some way to get through my days with value?”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “Within the first pages of a screenplay a reader can judge the relative skill of the writer simply by noting how he handles exposition.”

109. “Within the first pages of a screenplay a reader can judge the relative skill of the writer simply by noting how he handles exposition.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “An honest story is at home in one, and only one, place and time.”

110. “An honest story is at home in one, and only one, place and time.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “When you think about it, going to the movies is bizarre. Hundreds of strangers sit in a blackened room, elbow to elbow, for two or more hours. They don’t go to the toilet or get a smoke. Instead, they stare wide-eye at a screen, investing more uninterrupted concentration than they give to work, paying money to suffer emotions they’d do anything to avoid in life.”

111. “When you think about it, going to the movies is bizarre. Hundreds of strangers sit in a blackened room, elbow to elbow, for two or more hours. They don’t go to the toilet or get a smoke. Instead, they stare wide-eye at a screen, investing more uninterrupted concentration than they give to work, paying money to suffer emotions they’d do anything to avoid in life.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “The audience knows that people rarely, if ever, understand themselves, and if they do, they’re incapable of complete and honest self-explanation. There’s always a subtext. If, by chance, what a character says about himself is actually true, we don’t know it’s true until we witness his choices made under pressure. Self-explanation must be validated or contradicted in action.”

112. “The audience knows that people rarely, if ever, understand themselves, and if they do, they’re incapable of complete and honest self-explanation. There’s always a subtext. If, by chance, what a character says about himself is actually true, we don’t know it’s true until we witness his choices made under pressure. Self-explanation must be validated or contradicted in action.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “In life, idea and emotion come separately. Mind and passions revolve in different spheres of our humanity, rarely coordinated, usually at odds. In fact, in life, moments that blaze with a fusion of idea and emotion are so rare, when they happen you think you’re having a religious experience. But whereas life separates meaning from emotion, art unites them. Story is an instrument by which you create such epiphanies at will, the phenomenon known as aesthetic emotion.”

113. “In life, idea and emotion come separately. Mind and passions revolve in different spheres of our humanity, rarely coordinated, usually at odds. In fact, in life, moments that blaze with a fusion of idea and emotion are so rare, when they happen you think you’re having a religious experience. But whereas life separates meaning from emotion, art unites them. Story is an instrument by which you create such epiphanies at will, the phenomenon known as aesthetic emotion.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “Ninety percent of all verbal expression has no filmic equivalent. “He’s been sitting there for a long time” can’t be photographed.”

114. “Ninety percent of all verbal expression has no filmic equivalent. “He’s been sitting there for a long time” can’t be photographed.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “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.”

115. “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.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “As you create your story, you create your proof; idea and structure intertwine in a rhetorical relationship.”

116. “As you create your story, you create your proof; idea and structure intertwine in a rhetorical relationship.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “As we know from life, decisions are far more difficult to make than actions are to take.”

117. “As we know from life, decisions are far more difficult to make than actions are to take.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “At Crisis the protagonist’s willpower is most severely tested. As we know from life, decisions are far more difficult to make than actions are to take. We often put off doing something for as long as possible, then as we finally make the decision and step into the action, we’re surprised by its relative ease. We’re left to wonder why we dreaded doing it until we realize that most of life’s actions are within our reach, but decisions take willpower.”

118. “At Crisis the protagonist’s willpower is most severely tested. As we know from life, decisions are far more difficult to make than actions are to take. We often put off doing something for as long as possible, then as we finally make the decision and step into the action, we’re surprised by its relative ease. We’re left to wonder why we dreaded doing it until we realize that most of life’s actions are within our reach, but decisions take willpower.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “We go to the movies to enter a new, fascinating world, to inhabit vicariously another human being who at first seems so unlike us and yet at heart is like us, to live in a fictional reality that illuminates our daily reality.”

119. “We go to the movies to enter a new, fascinating world, to inhabit vicariously another human being who at first seems so unlike us and yet at heart is like us, to live in a fictional reality that illuminates our daily reality.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “Only by using everything and anything you know about the craft of storytelling can you make your talent forge story. For talent without craft is like fuel without an engine. It burns wildly but accomplishes nothing.”

120. “Only by using everything and anything you know about the craft of storytelling can you make your talent forge story. For talent without craft is like fuel without an engine. It burns wildly but accomplishes nothing.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “The PROTAGONIST has a conscious desire.”

121. “The PROTAGONIST has a conscious desire.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “No one needs yet another recipe book on how to reheat Hollywood leftovers. We need a rediscovery of the underlying tenets of our art, the guiding principles that liberate talent. No matter where a film is made – Hollywood, Paris, Hong Kong – if it’s of archetypal quality, it triggers a global and perpetual chain reaction of pleasure that carries it from cinema to cinema, generation to generation.”

122. “No one needs yet another recipe book on how to reheat Hollywood leftovers. We need a rediscovery of the underlying tenets of our art, the guiding principles that liberate talent. No matter where a film is made – Hollywood, Paris, Hong Kong – if it’s of archetypal quality, it triggers a global and perpetual chain reaction of pleasure that carries it from cinema to cinema, generation to generation.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “First, the discovery of a world we do not know.”

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

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “A working imagination is research.”

124. “A working imagination is research.”

— Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quote: “To retreat behind the notion that the audience simply wants to dump its troubles at the door and escape reality is a cowardly abandonment of the artist’s responsibility. Story isn’t a flight from reality but a vehicle that carries us on our search for reality, our best effort to make sense out of the anarchy of existence.”

125. “To retreat behind the notion that the audience simply wants to dump its troubles at the door and escape reality is a cowardly abandonment of the artist’s responsibility. Story isn’t a flight from reality but a vehicle that carries us on our search for reality, our best effort to make sense out of the anarchy of existence.”

— Robert McKee

Discipline Quotes

Discipline Quotes

Storytelling Quotes

Storytelling Quotes

Creative Quotes

Creative Quotes

PREV 1 2 3 NEXT

Discipline Quotes

Discipline Quotes

Storytelling Quotes

Storytelling Quotes

Creative Quotes

Creative Quotes

Quotes About Ideas

Quotes About Ideas

Filmmaking Quotes

Filmmaking Quotes

Quotes About Actors

Quotes About Actors

Motivational Quotes

Motivational Quotes

INSPIRATIONAL SUCCESS MOTIVATIONAL

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS INSPIRATIONAL

Positive Quotes

Positive Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

Save image...
Permalink
Open in new tab
Copy quote text

Beautiful Wallpapers and Images

We hope you enjoyed our collection of 120 Robert McKee Quotes.

All the images on this page were created with QuoteFancy Studio.

Use QuoteFancy Studio to create high-quality images for your desktop backgrounds, blog posts, presentations, social media, videos, posters, and more.

Thank you!

Please check your email.