Edward Albee Quotes - Page 4

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• A rather ugly thing starts happening: the playwright finds himself knocked down for works that quite often are just as good or better than the works he's been praised for previously. And a lot of playwrights become confused by this and they start doing imitations of what they've done before, or they try to do something entirely different, in which case they get accused by the same critics of not doing what they used to do so well.

  Edward Albee

  Confused, Ugly Things, Trying

  Edward Albee, Philip C. Kolin (1988). “Conversations with Edward Albee”, p.47, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• If you examine the history of any playwright of the past twenty - five or thirty years - I'm not talking about the comedy boys, I'm talking about the more serious writers - it seems inevitable that almost every one has been encouraged until the critics feel that they have built them up beyond the point where they can control them; then it's time to knock them down again.

  Edward Albee

  Past, Boys, Talking

  Edward Albee, Philip C. Kolin (1988). “Conversations with Edward Albee”, p.47, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Some writers' view of things depends upon the success of the final result. I'd rather stand or fall on my own concepts. But there is a fine line to be drawn between pointing up something or distorting it.

  Edward Albee

  Fall, Views, Finals

  Edward Albee, Philip C. Kolin (1988). “Conversations with Edward Albee”, p.49, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• The greatest problem with Irish Wolfhounds, though, is that they don't live very long: their great hearts give out. A good deal of this is genetic, of course, but I think it is in part that they worry so for us, care so much.

  Edward Albee

  Heart, Thinking, Long

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• I said I was impressed, Martha. I'm beside myself with jealousy. What do you want me to do, throw up?

  Edward Albee

  Want, Said, Impressed

  Edward Albee (2003). “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?: A Play”, p.49, Simon and Schuster

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• Read the great stuff, but read the stuff that isn't so great, too. Great stuff is very discouraging. If you read only Beckett and Chekhov, you'll go away and only deliver telegrams for Western Union.

  Edward Albee

  Going Away, Unions, Stuff

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Progress is a set of assumptions.

  Edward Albee

  Progress, Assumption

  Edward Albee (2007). “Seascape: The Entire Appalling Business”, p.86, The Overlook Press

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• Writing should be useful. If it can’t instruct people a little bit more about the responsibilities of consciousness, there’s no point in doing it.

  Edward Albee

  Writing, Responsibility, People

  "http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-albee/#interview". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 2, 2005.

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• There are always going to be more actors than anybody can ever use.

  Edward Albee

  Acting, Use, Actors

  Edward Albee, Philip C. Kolin (1988). “Conversations with Edward Albee”, p.71, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Any definition which limits us is deplorable.

  Edward Albee

  Definitions, Limits

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• You want to dance with me, angel tits?

  Edward Albee

  Angel, Want

  EDWARD ALBEE (1962). “WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?”

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• I have a fine sense of the ridiculous, but no sense of humor.

  Edward Albee

  Inspirational, Funny, Humor

  Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) act 1

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• I’m infinitely more involved in the reality of the characters and their situation than I am in everyday life.

  Edward Albee

  Character, Reality, Everyday

  Edward Albee, Philip C. Kolin (1988). “Conversations with Edward Albee”, p.57, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• I do not invent characters. There they are. That's who they are. That's their nature. They talk and they behave the way they want to behave. I don't have a character behaving one way, then a point comes in the play where the person has to either stay or leave. If I had it plotted that the person leaves, then the person leaves. If that's what the person wants to do. I let the person do what the person wants or has to do at the time of the event.

  Edward Albee

  Character, Play, Events

  The Believer Interview, www.believermag.com. September 2013.

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• If the playwright is strong enough to hold on to reasonable objectivity in the face of either hostility or praise, he'll do his work the way he was going to anyway.

  Edward Albee

  Strong, Objectivity, Way

  Edward Albee, Philip C. Kolin (1988). “Conversations with Edward Albee”, p.65, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it. A good writer turns fact into truth; a bad writer will, more often than not, accomplish the opposite.

  Edward Albee

  Truth, Writing, Reality

  Edward Albee (2009). “Stretching My Mind: The Collected Essays of Edward Albee”, p.48, Da Capo Press

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• Each time I sit down and write a play I try to dismiss from my mind as much as I possibly can the implications of what I've done before, what I'm going to do, what other people think about my work, the failure or success of the previous play. I'm stuck with a new reality that I've got to create.

  Edward Albee

  Writing, Reality, Thinking

  Edward Albee, Philip C. Kolin (1988). “Conversations with Edward Albee”, p.56, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• When one controls form, one doesn't do it with a stopwatch or a graph. One does it by sensing, again intuitively.

  Edward Albee

  Doe, Form, Graphs

  Edward Albee, Philip C. Kolin (1988). “Conversations with Edward Albee”, p.64, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• In the thirties a whole school of criticism bogged down intellectually in those agitprop, social-realistic days. A play had to be progressive. A number of plays by playwrights who were thought very highly of then - they were very bad playwrights - were highly praised because their themes were intellectually and politically proper. This intellectual morass is very dangerous, it seems to me. A form of censorship.

  Edward Albee

  School, Play, Numbers

  Edward Albee, Philip C. Kolin (1988). “Conversations with Edward Albee”, p.60, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• The difference between critics and audiences is that one is a group of humans and one is not.

  Edward Albee

  Differences, Editors, Groups

  "Edward Albee, Planned Wilderness: Interview, Essays, and Bibliography". Book edited by Patricia De La Fuente, 1980.

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• If I've been accused a number of times of writing plays where the endings are ambivalent, indeed, that's the way I find life.

  Edward Albee

  Writing, Play, Numbers

  Edward Albee, Philip C. Kolin (1988). “Conversations with Edward Albee”, p.57, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• You may dislike the intention enormously but your judgment of the artistic merit of the work must not be based on your view of what it's about. The work of art must be judged by how well it succeeds in its intention.

  Edward Albee

  Art, Views, May

  Edward Albee, Philip C. Kolin (1988). “Conversations with Edward Albee”, p.60, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• It is a lazy public which promotes a slothful and irresponsible theater.

  Edward Albee

  Lazy, Theater, Irresponsible

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• I swear, if you existed I'd divorce you.

  Edward Albee

  Divorce, Swear, Ifs

  Edward Albee (2004). “The Collected Plays of Edward Albee”, Overlook Press

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• There are lots of young vital playwrights who are experimenting, and these are the plays that people who are interested in the theatre should see. They should go off Broadway. They should go to the cafe theatres and see the experiments that are being made.

  Edward Albee

  Play, People, Theatre

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