Robert Towne famous quotes

03-26-2025

Good dialogue illuminates what people are not saying
-- Robert Towne

#People #Dialogue
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

#Past #California #Towns
I'm not supposed to be the one that's caught with his pants down.
-- Robert Towne

#Pants #Embarrassment #Caught
I'm not in business to be loved, but I am in business.
-- Robert Towne

#Business
You're dumber than you think I think you are.
-- Robert Towne

#Thinking #Stupidity
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

#Money #Power #Ideas
The straight roads are the roads of progress, the crooked roads are thee roads of genius.
-- Robert Towne

#Progress #Genius #Thee
Larry Grobel senses there are no answers in life, only questions. Good ones.
-- Robert Towne

#Answers
Either you bring the water to L.A. or you bring L.A. to the water.
-- Robert Towne

#Water #Los Angeles
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

#Math #Talking #Discipline
But time has caught up with it and I think vindicated it. Shampoo, too: very dark, very ambitious movie.
-- Robert Towne

#Dark #Thinking #Ambitious
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

#Children #Censorship #Remember
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

#Thinking #Way #Directors
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

#Thinking #People #Ears
Politicians, ugly buildings, and ***** all get respectable if they last long enough.
-- Robert Towne

#Respect #Long #Ugly
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

#Gay #Love Is #Thinking

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