Paddy Chayefsky > Quotes

“I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”
― Paddy Chayefsky, Network [Screenplay]

“Television is democracy at its ugliest.”
― 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, The Hospital

“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

“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, The Hospital

“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, Network [Screenplay]

“...human life doesn't have truth. We're born screaming in doubt, and we die suffocating in doubt, and human life consists of continually convincing ourselves we're alive. One of the ways we know we're alive is we love each other...”
― Paddy Chayefsky, Altered States

“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, The Latent Heterosexual

“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, Network [Screenplay]

“This was the story of Howard Beale: The first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings”
― Paddy Chayefsky, Network [Screenplay]

“What are you doing tonight?" "I don't know, what are you doing?" Burlesque! Loew's Paradise! Miserable and lonely! Miserable and lonely and stupid! What am I, crazy or something?! I got something good! What am I hanging around with you guys for?!”
― Paddy Chayefsky, The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays

“You are a very sick dude, you dumb son of a bitch!”
― Paddy Chayefsky, Altered States

“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, Network [Screenplay]

“We are a gutted generation, born in the depression and obsessed with prosperity.”
― Paddy Chayefsky, The Collected Works: The Screenplays, Vol. 1: Marty / The Goddess / The Americanization of Emily

“Maybe you ought to go, Charlie.
CHARLIE
No, they asked me. I told them I didn't want to go.
HELEN
It might do you good to have a night out. I know you're upset about the baby...
CHARLIE
I'm not upset...
HELEN
Come on, Charlie, I know how you feel. Listen, you don't have to pretend you're excited about having a baby. We weren't figuring on a kid right now, and it's a shock. Listen, I wasn't exactly overjoyed when I began to
suspect I was pregnant.”
― Paddy Chayefsky, The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays

“We were looking, looking, always looking for something. That's what we've been doing all night tonight. Going from one place to another, looking. What are we looking for? Go home, Eddie, go to bed. I'll take Arnold home, explain to everybody he was drunk, he didn't mean anything.”
― Paddy Chayefsky, The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays

“My brothers, my brother-in-laws, they're always telling me what a goodhearted guy I am. Well, you don't get goodhearted by accident. You get kicked
around long enough you get to be a real professor of pain. I know exactly how you feel. And I also want you to know I'm having a very good time with you now and really enjoying myself. So you see, you're not such a dog as you think”
― Paddy Chayefsky, The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays

“I'm a little, short, fat fellow, and girls don't go for me,
that's all. I'm not like you. I mean, you joke around, and they laugh at you, and you get along fine. I just stand around like a bug. What's the sense of kidding myself? Everybody's always telling me to get married. Get married. Get married. Don't you think I wanna get married? I wanna get married. They drive me crazy. Now, I don't wanna wreck your Saturday night for you, Angie. You wanna go somewhere, you go ahead. I don't wanna go.”
― Paddy Chayefsky, The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays

“Ma, I'm gonna stay home and watch Sid Caesar.
THE MOTHER
You gonna die without a son.
MARTY
So I'll die without a son.
THE MOTHER
Put on your blue suit...
MARTY
Blue suit, gray suit, I'm still a fat little man. A fat little ugly man.”
― Paddy Chayefsky, The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays

“These bachelor parties get a little out of hand sometimes. Eddie Watkins is making all the arrangements. If I know Eddie, he's probably lined up a whole bunch of chorus girls.”
― Paddy Chayefsky, The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays

“Yeah. That's what happened. We sat around, nobody talked. I don't understand marriage, Charlie. What are you supposed to do with your wife? I mean, most of the time.
CHARLIE
(Thinking)
Most of the time, Arnold, you don't even see each other. You're away working. You come home, and you eat. Then one of you washes the dishes. Then, if you're not tired, you can go to the movies or visit somebody. Or you watch Tee Vee.”
― Paddy Chayefsky, The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays

“What kinda family she come from? There was something about her I don't like. It seems funny, the first time you meet her she comes to your empty house alone. These college girls, they all one step from the streets.
(MARTY turns, gowning, to his mother)
MARTY
What are you talkin' about? She's a nice girl.
THE MOTHER
I don't like her.
MARTY
You don't like her? You only met her for two minutes.”
― Paddy Chayefsky, The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays

“I get real jealous of Eddie sometimes. He's as free as a bird. Did you ever see that convertible he's got? You ought to see the old heap I got. He walks out of here on payday, he can spend the whole works on having himself a good time. I walk out of here, and I got three kids and a wife, all with their palms out. I lost two bucks playing poker at my house last week. It was an economic catastrophe. My wife didn't sleep all night. (Frowning, he looks back to his work, then he looks up again) Look, the jerk is twenty minutes late. If the boss walked in now, he'd fire him. What does Eddie care? So he scrambles around for another job. If that ever happened to me, I'd be afraid to go home.”
― Paddy Chayefsky, The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays

“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, The Latent Heterosexual

“Beyond the physical, beyond matter, beyond energy, beyond science. It keeps going. It never stops... you see, matter, energy, our whole universe, are not absolutes. They are all fictions of human consciousness. And there are other consciousnesses and other universes. Our space is just one space among infinite spaces.”
― Paddy Chayefsky, Altered States

“Now and then, some fellow would sort of walk up to me and then change his mind. I just sat there, my hands in my lap. Well, about ten o'clock, a bunch of kids came in swaggering. They weren't more than seventeen, eighteen years old. Well, they swaggered down along the wall, leering at all the girls. I thought they were kind of cute... and as they passed me, I smiled at them. One of the kids looked at me and said: "Forget it, ugly, you ain't gotta chance." I burst out crying. I'm a big crier, you know.”
― Paddy Chayefsky, The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays

“I'm gonna see an old lady with white hair, like the old ladies inna park, little bundles inna black shawl, waiting for the coffin. I'm fifty-six years old. What am I to do with myself? I have strength in my hands. I wanna cook. I wanna clean. I wanna make dinner for my children. I wanna be of use to somebody. Am I an old dog to lie in fronta the fire till my eyes close? These are terrible years, Theresa! Terrible years!”
― Paddy Chayefsky, The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays

“These bachelor dinners get kind of wild sometimes. Everybody gets loaded. The whole philosophy is that it's the poor groom's last night before he goes into the electric chair. So it gets kind of wild.”
― Paddy Chayefsky, The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays

“VIRGINIA
And she begins complaining about this, and she begins complaining about that. And she got me so nervous, I spilled some milk I was making for the baby. You see, I was making some food for the baby, and...
THE MOTHER
So I said to her, "Catherine..."
VIRGINIA
So, she got me so nervous I spilled some milk. So she said: "You're spilling the milk." She says: "Milk costs twenny-four cents a bottle. Wadda you, a banker?" So I said: "Mama, leave me alone, please.”
― Paddy Chayefsky, The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays

“VIRGINIA
(Practically on the verge of tears)
I just can't stand it no more! Every minute of the day! Do this! Do that! I don't have ten minutes alone with my husband! We can't even have a fight! We don't have no privacy! Everybody's miserable in our house!
THOMAS
All right, Ginnie, don't get so excited.
THE MOTHER
She's right. She's right.”
― Paddy Chayefsky, The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays