Robert Altman Quotations

The Oscar for the films, it'd be nice. But I don't make those kind of films, and I don't think that will ever happen.

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.

I was scared that no one would hire me. At that time, there was still a stigma attached to it. A big stigma. Actually, I think I was healthier after the operation than some people who have bypass surgery because I was completely cured. But when you mentioned "heart transplant," you got a very negative reaction. It triggered people's imaginations, and not in a good way.

Most of my films I call arena films. I deal with a confined area -- an arena -- and I try to cover every aspect of it.

We make too much of the good and too much of the bad.

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.

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.

All of my films deal with the same thing: striving, socially and culturally, to stay alive.

I don't know what "Altmanesque" means, though I suppose I'm flattered by it.

That wasn't an ending. It was just a stopping point.