Best 294 quotes of Robert Greene on MyQuotes

I think I can do whatever I want with fiction, but the more documentary it is, the better it will be because that's what I'm good at. I'm good at observing people's behavior and putting these unspoken things into movie contexts in ways that other people can sometimes miss.

I think it comes in cycles for Brandy [Burre] and for many women. You want to take care of your home, making it as good as possible for your kids and for yourself, and then eventually you feel trapped and you want to break out of that. You want to be someone else and you want the world to look at you as something else. Eventually, you come back again. The cycles are very much a part of her life.

I think the homeless thing is very interesting and I think is an incredible exercise.

I think what happened with Brandy [Burre]is what happens with a lot of people. You make these decisions for comfort and stability, and then eventually those same things that are comforting and stable end up putting walls around you that you didn't expect.

It is in fact the height of selfishness to merely consume what others create and to retreat into a shell of limited goals and immediate pleasures.

It is the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not commit to any side or cause by yourself. By maintaining your independence, you become the master of others — playing people against one another, making them pursue you.

It looks like I had the most irrelevant education than anybody in the planet could have.

It's fortunately a kind of society we live in where we can be diverse. People can take different paths and not feel like they're doing something wrong.

It's funny how it reads like a Kubrick-inspired moment, a filmmaker controlling one's mise en scène. What it truly is is a documentary moment.

It's good to have a brand that is consistent that people know about and trust. But it's also good to mix it up and adapt it, to polish it a bit and give it a new aspect. To not violate the reputation you've established but give it a new edge and veneer to show other aspects that people hadn't suspected.

It's okay to be kind of looking for what you want and trying out all kinds of different ideas and different course work, etc.

It's okay to be lost in college.

It's sometimes hard to talk about politics and art. Obviously, I have my core beliefs, but I think art is best when it's troublesome and pushes against stuff.

I've always been intrigued by fighter pilots and strategy because it occurs in like, milliseconds, you know.

I've always been kind of a strategic thinking person - I love sports for instance, but my interest in sports is 'cause I love watching strategy in action or playing it. I'm not into the drama so much, of the physical action. I'm interested in the coach and how he's strategizing.

I want my movies to play in movie theaters. While festivals can fulfill a part of that, there's nothing like getting a week-long run for your movie. It's becoming increasingly difficult to get that.

I want to be able to write, that's my first love and I don't want to deviate from it even though I probably could have made a lot more money.

I was working on other things and I wanted to make a film, and I had some ideas brewing in my head. Brandy's [ Burre] circumstance was such that I didn't really know what was going to happen. That was obviously a surprise, but I knew she was in her mid-to-late thirties and she was starting to really think about her life in a way that really appealed to me, appealed to the women that I know in my life.

Jay-Z is more naturally gifted. He didn't depend as much as 50 did on his personal story. Jay-Z has a great story, he came from a pretty rough background. But 50's early success was so much fueled on the story and where he came from. With Jay-Z, I feel he has a more natural gift for language and for music itself. 50 really had to study and work at it much harder.

Kati with an I was a New York Times Critics' Pick and I was really happy that it got a run uptown in Harlem at the Maysles Cinema, which is a great space but isn't necessarily the most well attended for a week-long screening.

Life goes by very fast. And the worst thing in life that you can have is a job that you hate, that you have no energy in, that you're not creative with and you're not thinking of the future. To me, might as well be dead.

Love is a lock that linketh noble minds, Faith is the key that shuts the spring of love.

Mastery is not a function of genius or talent. It is a function of time and intense focus applied to a particular field of knowledge.

Mastery is not a function of I.Q. or natural talent or wealthy parents who can send you to the best school, but rather the result of going through a learning process, fueled by the desire to grow and the persistence to push past any obstacles.

Mastery is not a question of genetics of luck, but of following your natural inclinations and the deep desires that stirs you from within.

Mistakes and failures are precisely your means of education. They tell you about your own inadequacies.

Most people are passive aggressive in this world. I have the idea that the human being is born with a kind of reservoir of aggression. We are inherently somewhat aggressive creatures and we either channel that in direct ways or we channel it in indirect ways and become passive aggressive.

Most people are perpetually locked in the present. Their decisions are overly influenced by the most immediate event; they easily become emotional and ascribe greater significance to a problem than it should have in reality.

Most people have no sense of self-awareness. They're not aware of what they really want. They knew it when they were younger but then as they get older they listened to parents, they listened to peers and they think that, for instance, money is the most important thing when it really isn't.

Movie theaters barely make any money. A movie can make a couple of thousand dollars, or could get lucky and make ten or fifteen thousand dollars, but theatrical releases don't really sustain the work. For me, it's the best sort of advertisement for anything else you'd want to do.

My goal for Actress is to have it play more traditional theaters.

Never take your position for granted and never let any favors you receive go to your head.

Never whine, never complain, never try to justify yourself.

News makes things black and white. Documentary filmmaking should do the opposite.

Nobody is born without fear. We are all born into this world screaming and crying, a bloody mess. We're afraid of failing. What differentiates people is that some of them tend to deal more with fearful situations and understand that it's hurting them in life. That by becoming fearful they're maiming themselves and they learn to move past these fears.

Nobody that I know really likes the feeling of having no power and not being able to influence people. But most of us aren't too conscious of what we are trying to do and get that control and that power so people end up sort of playing all kinds of unconscious manipulative games or they're sort of half aware, they have an idea of a strategy or goal they want to use and they think about it. But then in the heat of the moment, it kind of all flies out the window.

No greater mischief could be wrought Than love united to a jealous thought.

No moment is wasted if you pay attention and learn the lessons contained in every experience.

No one's really taking it seriously enough, being more kind of careful and cautious in planning your life out and trying to reach a goal. It takes a great deal of effort - and this cannot be taught.

Nothing is stable in the realm of power, and even closest of friends can be transformed into the worst of enemies.

Obviously there's Netflix, iTunes, and Amazon and all these other outlets. Fake It So Real is now on Fandor, and I think people have actually seen it there, which is fine.

One can never expect critics to behave in any predictable way.

One could draw up all different kinds of adversity depending on what your weakness is.

One of the things I've been talking about with my critical writing and my own work is that these movies are seen differently in a theatrical space. It's very important to me. I edit films to be seen theatrically, like fiction material I've worked on like Listen Up Phillip or other documentaries.

One person reads the book, and cannot help telling a friend. That is vastly superior to any kind of advertisement, or clever magazine article. That is also the great power of the internet, where people share their opinions without the annoying screen of the media, and so much of the presence of my books has come from the Internet. It's a new era, a new form of war, and I embrace it.

Only create associations with positive affinities. Make this a rule of life and you will benefit more than from all the therapy in the world.

Only your hearts be frolic, for the time Craves that we taste of naught but jouissance.

On woman Nature did bestow two eyes, Like Hemian's bright lamps, in matchless beauty shining, Whose beams do soonest captivate the wise And wary heads, made rare by art's refining.

Our levels of desire, patience, persistence, and confidence end up playing a much larger role in success than sheer reasoning powers. Feel motivated and energized, we can overcome almost anything. Feeling bored and restless, our minds shut off and we become increasingly passive.

Our natural tendency is to project onto other people our own belief and value systems, in ways in which we are not even aware.