Playwright Quotes

• Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.

  Edward Albee

  Stage, Playwriting, Hanging Out

  "Shoptalk: Conversations About Theater and Film with Twelve Writers, One Producer - and Tennessee Williams' Mother by Dennis Brown". Book by Dennis Brown, 1992.

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• I am. I think. I will.

  Ayn Rand

  Thinking, Novelists, Philosopher

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Anthem”, p.46, Xist Publishing

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• Be yourself. Ultimately just be yourself.

  Wole Soyinka

  Inspirational, Being Yourself, Positive Thinking

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• It is very, very difficult for a playwright to write a scene in which a young man has his first deep experience of sex with a girl whom he found immensely attractive, is fully satisfied by this event and gets up and blinds a lot of horses.

  Peter Shaffer

  Girl, Horse, Sex

  16 Copy quote

• If you put your foot in it, be sure it's your best foot.

  Mae West

  Inspirational, Success, Feet

  Mae West (1967). “The wit and wisdom of Mae West”

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• A playwright has a responsibility in his society not to aid it, or comfort it, but to comment and criticize it.

  Edward Albee

  Responsibility, Comfort, Aids

  Edward Albee, Philip C. Kolin (1988). “Conversations with Edward Albee”, p.12, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.

  Bertolt Brecht

  Art, Reality, Mirrors

  251 Copy quote

• We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Life, Motivational, Positive

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

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• Oftentimes the quality of the light tells the story: the time of day, the weather, whether sun is streaming through the window. It can also help you appreciate what the actor is feeling, what the playwright wants you to feel. Any engineer can put a spot on someone.

  Jules Fisher

  Light, Weather, Appreciate

  11 Copy quote

• We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

  William Shakespeare

  Inspirational, Business, Good Life

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 4, sc. 5, l. [43]

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• Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.

  James A. Baldwin

  Inspirational, Change, Leadership

  "As Much Truth As One Can Bear". The New York Times Book Review, January 14, 1962.

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• Our stories come from our lives and from the playwright's pen, the mind of the actor, the roles we create, the artistry of life itself and the quest for peace.

  Maya Angelou

  Mind, Identity, Roles

  49 Copy quote

• I am very aware that playwrights, particularly good ones, have a intention for everything they write. Language and punctuation is used specifically, and most of the time actors can find wonderful clues about character in the rhythm and cadence of the language used.

  Laura Linney

  Character, Writing, Cadence

  9 Copy quote

• To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.

  Marilyn vos Savant

  Inspirational, Leadership, Wise

  "Courage: the heart and spirit of every woman : reclaiming the forgotten virtue". Book by Sandra Ford Walston, 2001.

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• 

  To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

  Oscar Wilde

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" (1891)

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• When I was 18 and not sure whether I wanted to be an actor, I realised that a playwright has no voice without an actor. That's my reason for acting: to get that character as right as possible for my writer. And I have never changed my philosophy.

  David Suchet

  Philosophy, Character, Voice

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• Being a playwright is like the equivalent of doing a jigsaw puzzle that has 1,500 pieces, and it's a jigsaw of a blue sky. Not a cloud in sight.

  Lewis Black

  Clouds, Sight, Jigsaw Puzzles

  13 Copy quote

• Well, one of the things we're supposed to be able to do as playwrights is write from a place of empathy, get into another character's shoes and experience things both mundane and tragic. And people don't - like me right now - people aren't necessarily the most eloquent when trying to express their emotions. I guess I feel as a playwright that those people deserve a voice, too, a voice that isn't so articulate that they themselves can no longer identify with it.

  Tracy Letts

  Writing, Character, Shoes

  "Tracy Letts Is Still Haunted by His Past". Interview with Alex Witchel, www.nytimes.com. March 21, 2014.

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• The theater is a communal event, like church. The playwright constructs a mass to be performed for a lot of people. She writes a prayer, which is really just the longings of one heart.

  Marsha Norman

  Prayer, Writing, Heart

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• The ideas of the great playwrights are almost always larger than the experiences of even the best actors.

  Stella Adler

  Ideas, Actors

  Howard Kissel, Stella Adler (2000). “Stella Adler - The Art of Acting: preface by Marlon Brando compiled & edited by Howard Kissel”, p.65, Hal Leonard Corporation

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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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• Life is only limited by our prejudices. Destroy them, and you cease to be at the mercy of yourself.

  Mina Loy

  Life, Motivational, Change

  Mina Loy (2015). “The Lost Lunar Baedeker: Poems of Mina Loy”, p.150, Macmillan

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• When you hit a wall – of your own imagined limitations – just kick it in.

  Sam Shepard

  Motivational, Moving On, Success

  "Remembering Sam Shepard: The Pulitzer-Winning Playwright and Author's 10 Best Quotes on Writing, Love and Life" by Olivia Ladd, parade.com. July 31, 2017.

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• Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.

  James M. Barrie

  Letting Go, Goodbye, Farewell

  "Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up". Book by James M. Barrie, www.huffingtonpost.com. 1911.

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• People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Inspirational, Perseverance, Business

  516 Copy quote