Quotes by Robert Towne - Page 1

You're dumber than you think I think you are.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Hiding Something
Stupidity
Thinking
Dumber
Copy Quote
Good dialogue illuminates what people are not saying
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Dialogue
People
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I'm not in business to be loved, but I am in business.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Business
Chinatown
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I'm not supposed to be the one that's caught with his pants down.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Caught
Embarrassment
Pants
Copy Quote
Either you bring the water to L.A. or you bring L.A. to the water.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Chinatown
Los Angeles
Water
Copy Quote
Larry Grobel senses there are no answers in life, only questions. Good ones.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Answers
Larry
Senses
Copy Quote
Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Respect
Lasts
Long
Ugly
Copy Quote
The straight roads are the roads of progress, the crooked roads are thee roads of genius.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Genius
Progress
Thee
Copy Quote
But time has caught up with it and I think vindicated it. Shampoo, too: very dark, very ambitious movie.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Ambitious
Caught
Dark
Shampoo
Thinking
Vindicated
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One of the reasons for going back into the past is that it's almost the only place that there's any drama.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Drama
Reasons
Copy Quote
If you can find meaning in the type of running you need todo to stay on this team, chances are you can find meaning in another absurd pastime: Life.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Running
Chance
Needs
Team
Copy Quote
Finally, Colin Farrell showed up on my doorstep, only he wasn't Colin Farrell - he was just this Irish kid who had read the script and wanted to do it.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Kids
Doorstep
Scripts
Wanted
Colin
Finally
Script
Copy Quote
And I think one way or another it's evident to those who work with me that as a writer, a director, a friend, as somebody's there that's very anxious to get the movie made.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Anxious
Directors
Evident
Thinking
Way
Work Me Way
Copy Quote
I'm excited and encouraged to see people getting involved with their public lands and forests. We really need the public's help to repair these heavily used recreation sites.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Excited
Forests
Public Lands
Recreation
Encouraged
Lands
Repair
Sites
Copy Quote
In dramatic writing, the very essence is character change. The character at the end is not the same as he was at the beginning. He's changed-psychologically, maybe even physically.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Character
Essence
Writing
Copy Quote
It made me alive to the fact that the most important thing sometimes is what isn't said - to prepare for moments of revelation that can be read entirely on actors' faces without dialogue.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Alive
Dialogue
Faces
Moments
Me Important Sometimes
Entirely
Important Thing
Most Important Thing
Prepare
Revelation
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It was not possible to film in California, because all the areas are heavily built up now. Coming to Cape Town is an invitation to step into the past and recreate Los Angeles of the 1930s.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
California
Capes
Film
Los Angeles
Past
Angeles
Area
Cape
Possible
Coming
Invitation
Los
Recreate
Step
Copy Quote
People who can't think of anything else but whether the person you love is indented or convex should be doomed not to think of anything else but that, and so miss the other ninety-five percent of life.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Gay
Love Is
Thinking
Copy Quote
If you have a good ear for dialogue, you just can't help thinking about the way people talk. You're drawn to it. And the obsessive interest in it forces you to develop it. You almost can't help yourself.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Dialogue
Ears
Obsessive
People
Thinking
Good Thinking Yourself
Develop
Drawn
Ear
Forces
Copy Quote
But, uh, censorship at that time said that you just absolutely couldn't do anything involving children and so we had to go from there. I don't remember what I changed it to. Duvall is just excellent in it.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Censorship
Children
Involving
Remember
Copy Quote
You're torn between wanting to fill in all the spaces and knowing that's really going to screw up the screenplay. And yet, how are you going to communicate it to people who really don't understand the process?
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Communicate
Torn
Fill
Screenplay
Spaces
Wanting
Copy Quote
I think that those are the things that you can uniquely do with film that are difficult to do anywhere else: they can bring a picture to life, give it a natural and historical context and make you feel that everything else is suddenly credible.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Credible
Anywhere
Anywhere Else
Context
Everything Else
Suddenly
Uniquely
Copy Quote
Now they're attracted to one another, but repelled by their ethnic origins, so that there was something to overcome. They had to overcome their own prejudices, which had been imposed by the culture - their own shame at being Mexican and Italian.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Italian
Mexican
Overcome
Attracted
Ethnic
Imposed
Origins
Prejudices
Repelled
Copy Quote
How much are you worth? I have no idea. How much do you want? Naw.I just want to know what you're worth. Over ten million? Oh, my, yes. Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford? The future, Mr. Gittes! The future!
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Power
Money
Ideas
Copy Quote
I think Los Angeles certainly grew out and grew up, but I don't think it matured. It lost the appeal and the hunger and the beauty of its adolescence and went straight to a middle-aged ugly, overfed monster seeking mindless pleasure and being obsessively acquisitive. It's so materialistic. It grew up, but it didn't mature.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Materialistic
Thinking
Ugly
Copy Quote
What makes screenplays difficult are the things that require the most discipline and care and are just not seen by most people. I'm talking about movement - screenwriting is related to math and music, and if you zig here, you know you have to zag there. It's like the descriptions for a piece of music - you go fast or slow or with feeling. It's the same.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Discipline
Math
Talking
Copy Quote
The one thing you know when you're shooting a script - and I've been on a lot of sets - is space is in a script, and the distance between the page and the stage is so enormous that it is unbelievable how even the brightest people can misread your intent or not see it altogether. Scripts have air in them. Scripts are supposed to leave things up to interpretation, but people can misread things enormously, so sometimes it's just a matter of wanting to put on the screen what you had in mind.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Distance
Mind
People
Copy Quote
Black pride. Gay pride. White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant pride. All of these things, you know, they're polarized, aren't they? The red and blue states. Christians, that's the most insidious aspect of it, giving into this great Christian image of America. That's the most frightening thing of all. Whereas in the past they're trying to find things that unite us, to minimize the differences. Whereas today there's this belief in empowerment and entitlement by maximizing differences. I'm not so sure that that's healthy.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
Christian
Gay
Pride
Copy Quote
Relative to the power that movie stars have, and producers and directors, I would say that even the most respected screenwriters have very little power in Hollywood. I don't think it's in the nature of the writer's profession to go after that power. Writers spend their time alone, hallucinating, writing, making these things up, while these other people are out schmoozing, making connections, meeting each other. They are trotting the corridors of power and making sure they've put their own imprints in it. And they're promoting themselves and their images, as they should.
Robert Towne / Screenwriter
People
Thinking
Writing
Copy Quote

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Robert Towne Quotes - Page 1

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