Paddy Chayefsky Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 36 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Paddy Chayefsky.
Famous Quotes By Paddy Chayefsky
I'm a flaming faggot, Irving. I was sure you were on to that. I don't go around waving the flag, of course, and I definitely do not proselytize. Homosexuality is, to me, an inner satisfaction, a pride in a heritage of greatness. To marry a woman would be an inadmissible rejection of my identity. — Paddy Chayefsky
This story is about Howard Beale, who was the news anchorman on UBS TV. In his time, Howard Beale had been a mandarin of television, the grand old man of news, with a HUT rating of 16 and a 28 audience share. In 1969, however, his fortunes began to decline. He fell to a 22 share. The following year, his wife died, and he was left a childless widower with an 8 rating and a 12 share. He became morose and isolated, began to drink heavily, and on September 22, 1975, he was fired, effective in two weeks. — Paddy Chayefsky
The worst kind of censorship is the kind that takes place in your own mind before you sit down to a typewriter. — Paddy Chayefsky
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
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
I don't want to leave you alone. I want you to get mad.[ ... ]You've got to say 'I'm a human being, god dammit! My life has value! — Paddy Chayefsky
I would like at this moment to announce that I will be retiring from this program in two weeks' time because of poor ratings. Since this show is the only thing I had going for me in my life, I've decided to kill myself. I'm going to blow my brains out right on this program a week from today. So tune in next Tuesday. That should give the public relations people a week to promote the show. You ought to get a hell of a rating out of that. 50 share, easy. — Paddy Chayefsky
We are a gutted generation, born in the depression and obsessed with prosperity. — Paddy Chayefsky
You don't send a man to his death because you want a hero. — Paddy Chayefsky
This was the story of Howard Beale: The first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings — Paddy Chayefsky
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
Television is the menace that everyone loves to hate but can't seem to live without. — Paddy Chayefsky
Howard Beale is processed, instant God, and right now it looks like he might just go over bigger than Mary Tyler Moore. — Paddy Chayefsky
Ma, sooner or later there comes a point in a man's life when he's gotta face some facts. And one fact I've got to face is whateverit is women like, I ain't got it. — Paddy Chayefsky
I'm not sentimental about war. I see nothing noble in widows. — Paddy Chayefsky
The first dead man on Omaha Beach must be a sailor! — Paddy Chayefsky
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
Television will do anything for a rating ... anything! — Paddy Chayefsky
Oh, there are no living poets, Miss Van Damn. We're not entirely sure there ever were. They've found some shreds of sonnets in England and, embedded in a chalk wall of a cave in France, some yet undetermined thing which might be the legendary inward eye. But all evidence, such as it is, suggests that, if there ever were poets, they were all burned into extinction during the interglacial period of despair. — Paddy Chayefsky
Don't think of it as art, think of it as work. — Paddy Chayefsky
His vital signs were taken, an electrocardiogram ... which revealed occasional ventricular premature contractions. An intern took his history ... and then he was promptly ... simply ... forgotten to death. — Paddy Chayefsky
You're not such a dog as you think you are. — Paddy Chayefsky
Television is god-damned amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers and football players. We're in the boredom killing business. — Paddy Chayefsky
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
The best thing that can happen is for the theme to be nice and clear from the beginning. — Paddy Chayefsky
It's always the generals with the bloodiest records who are the first to shout what a hell it is. And it's always the war widows who lead the Memorial Day parades. — Paddy Chayefsky
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
We've established the most enormous medical entity ever conceived ... and people are sicker than ever. We cure nothing! We heal nothing! — Paddy Chayefsky
Americans don't want drama, especially good drama, they just want their boredom killed. — Paddy Chayefsky
I'm a man without a corporation. — Paddy Chayefsky
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
You British plundered half the world for your own profit. Let's not pass it off as the Age of Enlightenment. — Paddy Chayefsky
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
I'm not a great writer. I'm a great rewriter. — Paddy Chayefsky