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People Have Asked Me Throughout The Years Which Directors Have Influenced Me. I Don't Know Their Names, Because I Was Mostly Influenced When I'd See A Film And Think, "man, I Want To Be Sure To Never Do Anything Like That." So I Never Learned Their Names. It Wasn't A Matter Of Copying Or Emulating Somebody I Admired. It Was Getting Rid Of A Lot Of Stuff.

-Robert Altman

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People Have Asked Me

Robert Altman

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People Have Asked Me Throughout The Years Which Directors Have Influenced Me. I Don't Know Their Names, Because I Was Mostly Influenced When I'd See A Film And Think, "man, I Want To Be Sure To Never Do Anything Like That." So I Never Learned Their Names. It Wasn't A Matter Of Copying Or Emulating Somebody I Admired. It Was Getting Rid Of A Lot Of Stuff.

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Retirement? You're Talking About Death, Right?

All Of My Films Deal With The Same Thing: Striving, Socially And Culturally, To Stay Alive.

Your Own Ego Is The Only Trap That I Think You Can Fall Into.

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Why Should I Keep Doing Things That I've Done Before?

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I Insist That They Do What They Became Actors To Do. I Want Them To Create Something And Not Just Hit Marks And Say Words. So They All Love That Because They're Playing. It's Called Playacting. Their Contributions Are Not Only Welcomed, But Are Accepted And Used.

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.

Men Make Clothes For The Women They'd Like To Be With Or In Most Cases The Women They'd Like To Be.

I Have Never Made A Movie That's Attracted A 14-year-old Boy.

I Am Not An Expert. That Is Someone Else's Job. If I Were Expert, The Approach Would Be All Wrong. It Would Be From The Inside. I Am A Blunderer. I Usually Don't Know What I Am Going Into At The Start. I Go Into The Fog And Trust Something Will Be There.

If Something Works For You, You Continue To Do It. I Did A Bunch Of Pictures For 20th Century Fox When Alan Ladd Was Over There, But I Set The Budgets So Low That They'd Approve And I'd Deliver The Film. They Would Have No Say In It, Which Is The Kind Of Arrangement I Liked.

Jazz Has Endured Because It Doesn't Have A Beginning Or An Ending. It's A Moment.

I Don't Think Screenplay Writing Is The Same As Writing - I Mean, I Think It's Blueprinting.

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.

They'll Never Give Me An Oscar. And I Sincerely, Honestly Don't Care. I Always Turn Up When I'm Nominated And It Would Be Nice To Get One, But To Win One Would Be Bad Luck. It Comes With Too Much Expectation. It Would Be The End.

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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.

If George W. Bush Is Elected President, I'm Leaving For France.

The Minute You Have More Than One Voice, You Have More Possibilities Opening Up. You Have All The Molecules In All Of Those Bodies And Their Make Up Interacting.

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