Anthony McCarten Quotes
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Reading is essential to human life. When the last reader dies, humanity will be at an end.
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When I grew up, my house contained only two books: the Bible and the 'Edmonds' cookbook. We were a working-class household. Books were a poor second to the television, which was always on, usually with me in front of it.
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You can't write a character more brilliant than yourself. It's just not physically possible.
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My experience is, the writer I was when I began was only a fraction of what I feel capable of doing now. Don't stand on that threshold saying, 'I'm uncertain about my talent.' You can grow that part of yourself.
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As you get older, you become more vain. But as your looks slowly deteriorate, your eyesight worsens, so it all balances out.
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I am so superstitious that I think even discussing this subject is dangerous and will probably bring me terrible luck. Having been raised a Catholic, superstition becomes almost part of your DNA. The challenge is to slowly rid yourself of these little delusions.
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There is the cult of the actor and of the director, and there's even been the cult of the celebrity chef and gardener, but there has never been a cult of the screenwriter. But I'm happy about that because what I crave - in a completely venal way - is creative opportunities, not recognition.
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The people I'm drawn to are sort of self-created. They came from backgrounds where not much was expected of them, necessarily.
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It's impossible to make a living in the arts unless you make a fortune. There's almost no in-between. Writers are either broke or rolling in it. Oddly, you can't tell them apart.
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Most writers live in self-imposed exile, even when they don't leave their country. They prefer the undiscovered country inside their own heads.
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If you look at the copies of Churchill's speeches that have survived, they are heavily marked up. He was scrupulous about the impact of each word. He preferred short words and the repetition of short words. He knew everything about the techniques of rhetoric.
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If we did not have the impulse and ability to believe in the impossible, we would not have religion, democracy, or marriage.