There's a real tension between it being a collaborative art process, which is almost like performance art of yourself, and, as we talk about the movie, it's kind of a mix between melodrama and cinéma vérité. This involves ideas about playing the role of yourself and the movie of your life and all these other things.
Robert GreeneThe truth is that creative activity is one that involves the entire self - our emotions, our levels of energy, our characters, and our minds.
Robert GreeneWe have consciousness and rational powers but unless you're willing to spend the time to gain control of yourself, gain control of your emotions, to think deeply about what you want in a year or two, or where you want your business to be, you're going to be swept away by every new event that occurs in the course of the day or the week and the small amount of time that you plan, that you address to conscious planning, is never enough to overcome the constant tide of emotions and new things happening.
Robert GreeneBe brutal with the past, especially your own, and have no respect for the philosophies that are foisted on you from outside.
Robert GreeneIn the opening stage of most careers any attention is what you want, any attention is good attention, even if it's bad attention.
Robert GreeneHer seductive power, however, did not lie in her looks [...]. In reality, Cleopatra was physically unexceptional and had no political power, yet both Caesar and Antony, brave and clever men, saw none of this. What they saw was a woman who constantly transformed herself before their eyes, a one-woman spectacle.Her dress and makeup changed from day to day, but always gave her a heightened, goddesslike appearance. Her words could be banal enough, but were spoken so sweetly that listeners would find themselves remembering not what she said but how she said it.
Robert Greene