Paddy Chayefsky Quotes

• Stop thinking about writing as art. Think of it as work. If you’re an artist, whatever you do is going to be art. If you’re not an artist, at least you can do a good day’s work.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Art, Writing, Good Day

  26 Copy quote

• The worst kind of censorship is the kind that takes place in your own mind before you sit down to a typewriter.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Typewriters, Mind, Censorship

  13 Copy quote

• Television is not the truth! Television is a goddamned amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a travelling troupe of acrobats and story-tellers, singers and dancers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion-tamers and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business!

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Football, Player, Boredom

  "The Screenplays: The Hospital; Network; Altered states".

  12 Copy quote

• We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business...There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  College, America, Democracy

  15 Copy quote

• The best thing that can happen is for the theme to be nice and clear from the beginning.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Nice, Theme, Clear

  8 Copy quote

• Americans don’t want drama, especially good drama, they just want their boredom killed.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Drama, Boredom, Want

  15 Copy quote

• I'm not a great writer. I'm a great rewriter.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Writing, Great Writers

  9 Copy quote

• I don't know what's good, or bad, or true. I let God worry about truth. I just want to know the momentary fact of things. Life isn't good, or bad, or true. It's merely factual. It's sensual. It's alive!

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Life, God, Letting Go

  Paddy Chayefsky (1995). “The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Screenplays”, Applause Theatre & Cinema Books

  7 Copy quote

• God save us from people who do the morally right thing. It's always the rest of us who get broken in half.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  People, Broken, Promise

  Paddy Chayefsky (1995). “The screenplays”

  11 Copy quote

• Artists don't talk about art. Artists talk about work. If I have anything to say to young writers, it's stop thinking of writing as art. Think of it as work.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Art, Writing, Thinking

  14 Copy quote

• Television is democracy at its ugliest.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Political, Style, Democracy

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  9 Copy quote

• It's not greed and ambition that makes wars--it's goodness. Wars are always fought for the best of reasons, for liberation or manifest destiny, always against tyranny and always in the best interests of humanity. So far this war, we've managed to butcher some 10,000,000 people in the interest of humanity. The next war, it seems we'll have to destroy all of man in order to preserve his damn dignity.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  War, Ambition, Destiny

  Paddy Chayefsky (1995). “The screenplays”

  13 Copy quote

• I'm a human being, god-dammit. My life has value!

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Humans, Human Beings, Values

  Paddy Chayefsky (1995). “The Screenplays: The Hospital; Network; Altered states”

  5 Copy quote

• Television is the menace that everyone loves to hate but can't seem to live without.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Hate, Television, One Love

  13 Copy quote

• You British plundered half the world for your own profit. Let's not pass it off as the Age of Enlightenment.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Age, Enlightenment, Half

  Paddy Chayefsky (1995). “The screenplays”

  85 Copy quote

• All my brothers, my brothers-in-law, they're always telling me what a good-hearted guy I am. You don't get to be good-hearted by accident. You get kicked around long enough, you get to be a real professor of pain.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Brother, Pain, Real

  15 Copy quote

• Don't think of it as art, think of it as work.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Art, Thinking

  8 Copy quote

• I'm afraid to look in the mirror. I'm afraid I'm going to see an old lady with white hair, just like the old ladies in the park. Alittle bundle in a black shawl just waiting for the coffin.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Fear, Mirrors, Hair

  4 Copy quote

• I'm not sentimental about war. I see nothing noble in widows.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Peace, War, Widows

  "Fictional character: Lt. Cmdr. Charles E. "Charlie" Madison". "The Americanization of Emily", 1964.

  5 Copy quote

• Television is not the truth. Television is a goddamned amusement park.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Television, Amusement, Parks

  Paddy Chayefsky (1995). “The Screenplays: The Hospital; Network; Altered states”

  6 Copy quote

• It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic, and sub-atomic, and galactic structure of things today. And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature! And you will atone! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Business, Order, Today

  "Fictional character: Arthur Jensen". "Network", 1976.

  7 Copy quote

• We've established the most enormous medical entity ever conceived... and people are sicker than ever. We cure nothing! We heal nothing!

  Paddy Chayefsky

  People, Medical, Cures

  5 Copy quote

• You're not such a dog as you think you are.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Dog, Men, Thinking

  Paddy Chayefsky (1995). “The Television Plays”, p.166, Hal Leonard Corporation

  4 Copy quote

• You don't send a man to his death because you want a hero.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Hero, Men, Want

  Paddy Chayefsky (1995). “The screenplays”

  8 Copy quote

• This was the story of Howard Beale: The first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings.

  Paddy Chayefsky

  Men, Stories, Firsts

  "Fictional character: Narrator". "Network", www.imdb.com. November 14, 1976.

  4 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Sidney Lumet

Ken Russell

Ernest Borgnine

Faye Dunaway

Arthur Hiller

William Holden

George C. Scott

Ned Beatty