Paddy Chayefsky's Quotes

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.

God save us from people who do the morally right thing. It's always the rest of us who get broken in half.

I'm a man without a corporation.

You British plundered half the world for your own profit. Let's not pass it off as the Age of Enlightenment.

You don't send a man to his death because you want a hero.

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.

Monkeys are superior to men in this: when a monkey looks into a mirror, he sees a monkey.

The flower in the vase smiles, but no longer laughs.

A women knows how to keep quiet when she is in the right, whereas a man, when he is in the right, will keep on talking.

Laughter is regional: a smile extends over the whole face.

Art is nature speeded up and God slowed down.

Women make us poets, children make us philosophers.

The family is a court of justice which never shuts down for night or day.

The idealist walks on tiptoe, the materialist on his heels.

Our expression and our words never coincide, which is why the animals don't understand us.

The beautiful remains so in ugly surroundings.

The flower is a jumble of thighs, the sun's harem - the most oriental thing imaginable.

The man who can make others laugh secures more votes for a measure than the man who forces them to think.

The mind gets distracted in all sorts of ways. The heart is its own exclusive concern and diversion.

We always keep God waiting while we admit more importunate suitors.

We sometimes laugh from ear to ear, but it would be impossible for a smile to be wider than the distance between our eyes.

Women eat while they are talking; men talk while they are eating.

Animals awaken, first facially, then bodily. Men's bodies wake before their faces do. The animal sleeps within its body, man sleeps with his body in his mind.