Robert Altman Quotes

#1. What is an ending? Theres no such thing. Death is the only ending.

Robert Altman

#2. Titanic I thought was the most dreadful piece of work I've ever seen in my entire life. Another film that I think is equally bad was American Beauty. So badly acted and directed. But people like that.

Robert Altman

#3. I've had it-the agencies, the winking, the networks, the ratings. Anyone who thinks TV is an art medium is crazy-it's an advertising medium.

Robert Altman

#4. Words don't tell you what people are thinking. Rarely do we use words to really tell. We use words to sell people or to convince people or to make them admire us. It's all disguise. It's all hidden
a secret language.

Robert Altman

#5. Chance is another name that we give to our mistakes. And all of the best things in my films are mistakes.

Robert Altman

#6. Men make clothes for the women they'd like to be with or in most cases the women they'd like to be.

Robert Altman

#7. All of my films deal with the same thing: striving, socially and culturally, to stay alive.

Robert Altman

#8. Happy endings are absolutely ludicrous, they're not true at all. We see the guy carry the girl across the threshold and everybody lives happily ever after
that's bullshit. Three weeks later he's beating her up and she's suing for divorce and he's got cancer.

Robert Altman

#9. I don't think screenplay writing is the same as writing - I mean, I think it's blueprinting.

Robert Altman

#10. If George W. Bush is elected president, I'm leaving for France.

Robert Altman

#11. Retirement? You're talking about death, right?

Robert Altman

#12. Your own ego is the only trap that I think you can fall into.

Robert Altman

#13. Wisdom and love have nothing to do with each other. Wisdom is staying alive, survival. You're wise if you don't stick your finger in the light plug. Love - you'll stick your finger in anything.

Robert Altman

#14. If you don't have a leg to stand on, you can't put your foot down.

Robert Altman

#15. [The Player is] not a truthful indictment of Hollywood. It's much uglier than I portrayed it, but nobody would've been interested if I'd shown just how sadistic, cruel and self-orientated it is.

Robert Altman

#16. I have never made a movie that's attracted a 14-year-old boy.

Robert Altman

#17. Jazz has endured because it doesn't have a beginning or an ending. It's a moment.

Robert Altman

#18. I want to see something that I've never seen before, so how can I tell that actor what that is? I'm not trying to construct a document or situation that is what I want, because what I want is something new to me.

Robert Altman

#19. Making a movie is like chipping away at a stone. You take a piece off here, you take a piece off there and when you're finished, you have a sculpture. You know that there's something in there, but you're not sure exactly what it is until you find it.

Robert Altman

#20. The artist and the multitude are natural enemies. They always will be, both ways. The artist is an enemy of the multitude, and the multitude is the enemy of the artist. And when the disguise comes off and they're both standing facing one another, they're just there at odds end.

Robert Altman

#21. It's all just one film to me. Just different chapters.

Robert Altman

#22. What's a cult? It just means not enough people to make a minority.

Robert Altman

#23. I'll give you the same advice I give my children: Never take advice from anybody.

Robert Altman

#24. I've never had a big hit movie. "MASH" was probably the biggest. I don't make those kind of films, and I never have. I wish each one of them would just do billions of dollars worth of ticket sales, but they never do and they never will.

Robert Altman

#25. If you have a child who is seven feet tall, you don't cut off his head or his legs. You buy him a bigger bed and hope he plays basketball.

Robert Altman

#26. Filmmaking is a chance to live many lifetimes.

Robert Altman

#27. The Oscar for the films, it'd be nice. But I don't make those kind of films, and I don't think that will ever happen.

Robert Altman

#28. Maybe there's a chance to get back to grown-up films. Anything that uses humor and dramatic values to deal with human emotions and gets down to what people are to people.

Robert Altman

#29. There was not a lot of dialogue. The titles were just to keep you up. It's the visual stimulation that hits the audience. That's the reason for film. Otherwise, we might as well turn the light out and call it radio.

Robert Altman

#30. I don't know what "Altmanesque" means, though I suppose I'm flattered by it.

Robert Altman

#31. I love fishing. You put that line in the water and you don't know what's on the other end. Your imagination is under there.

Robert Altman