1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Robert McKee

Robert McKee Quotes

Robert McKee is a creative writing instructor who is widely known for his popular "Story Seminar", which he developed when he was a professor at the University of Southern California. McKee is the author of a "screenwriters' bible" called Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting. Online, McKee has a blog and a writers' resource website called "Storylogue".

McKee's "Story Seminar" runs twice yearly in New York City, Los Angeles, and London, and about once yearly in other major cities worldwide including Amsterdam, Beijing, Mumbai, Paris, and Rio de Janeiro. The seminar covers how story fits the human mind, from the philosophical to the structural. McKee's one-day "Genre Seminars", often held 5 days in a row, delve into the conventions of the Thriller, the Comedy, the Love Story, the Action Story, and Television.

Rather than simply handling "mechanical" aspects of fiction technique such as plot or dialogue taken individually, McKee examines the narrative structure of a work and what makes a story compelling or not. This could work equally as well as an analysis of any other genre or form of narrative, whether in screenplay or any other form, and could also encompass nonfiction works as long as they attempt to "tell a story".

After consulting on story-in-business for various multinational companies including Microsoft, Nike, Hewlett-Packard, Time Warner, and Siemens, in the fall of 2013 McKee launched a seminar for the business community in Los Angeles, New York, Beijing, and Malta. The "True Talk: Story-in-Business Seminar" instructs leaders and managers on how to use story in strategic management, brand management, and business communications.

✵ 30. January 1941
Robert McKee photo
Robert McKee: 11 quotes2 likes

Famous Robert McKee Quotes

“Do research. Feed your talent. Research not only wins the war on cliche, it's the key to victory over fear and it's cousin, depression.”

Robert McKee

Source: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

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

Robert McKee

“True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure - the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character's essential nature.”

Robert McKee

Source: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“Dialogue concentrates meaning; conversation dilutes it.”

Robert McKee

Dialogue: The Art of Verbal Action for Page, Stage, and Screen

“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.”

Robert McKee

Source: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“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

Source: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

Robert McKee Quotes

“In a world of lies and liars, an honest work of art is always an act of social responsibility.”

Robert McKee

Source: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“When we want mood experiences, we go to concerts or museums. When we want meaningful emotional experience, we go to the storyteller.”

Robert McKee

Source: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“Most of life's actions are within our reach, but decisions take willpower.”

Robert McKee

Source: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“(…)while it's true that the unexamined life is not worth living, it's also true that the unlived life isn't worth examining.”

Robert McKee

Source: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“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

Source: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

Similar authors

George Raymond Richard Martin photo
George Raymond Richard Martin35
American writer, screenwriter and television producer None
Jacques Prevért photo
Jacques Prevért12
French poet, screenwriter None
Orhan Pamuk photo
Orhan Pamuk55
Turkish novelist, screenwriter, and Nobel Prize in Literatu… None
Neale Donald Walsch photo
Neale Donald Walsch69
American writer None
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Jean Paul Sartre321
French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, sc… None
Billy Wilder photo
Billy Wilder23
American filmmaker None
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald411
American novelist and screenwriter None
Peter Ustinov photo
Peter Ustinov59
English actor, writer, and dramatist None
Ludwig von Mises photo
Ludwig von Mises62
austrian economist None
Ayn Rand photo
Ayn Rand322
Russian-American novelist and philosopher None