Quotes by Athol Fugard - Page 1

My essential identity is that of a writer.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Essentials
Identity
Essential
Copy Quote
We compound our suffering by victimizing each other.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Diversity
Justice
Suffering
Copy Quote
Creativity is very selfish. Scandalously so, in fact.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Creativity
Facts
Selfish
In Fact
Copy Quote
I'm always in disguise in one form or another in my plays.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Disguise
Form
Play
Copy Quote
Life is just a plain bloody mess, that's all. And people are fools.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Fool
Life Is
People
Copy Quote
I've always sensed for myself an obligation to bear witness to my time.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Bears
My Time
Obligation
Witness
Time Myself Always
Bear
Sensed
Copy Quote
The act of witnessing is important to me; somebody's got to tell the truth, you know what I mean?
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Act
Truth Me Important
Tell
Witnessing
Copy Quote
You can't answer violence with counter violence ... The answer is love. The best sabotage is love.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Answers
Sabotage
Violence
Copy Quote
I've had one experience of writer's block in my life, and it was living hell. It was a terror for me.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Block
Terror
Life Experience Me
Copy Quote
Every boy needs a role model that he can be proud of and talk about to the other kids in the playground.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Kids
Boys
Role Models
Other Kids
Playground
Role Model
Copy Quote
If the nature of human experience changes with the color of a man's skin, then the racists have been right all along.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Men
Color
Theatre
Copy Quote
Love is the only energy I’ve ever used as a writer. I’ve never written out of anger, although anger has informed love.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Anger
Love
Inspiration
Copy Quote
The things that converge in the writing of a play come from a complex of motives, a genesis shrouded in a certain kind of mystery.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Genesis
Kind
Play
Writing
Complex
Converge
Motives
Copy Quote
Theater will never, and never has, gotten audiences like film. But theater goes to work on society in a different and more subversive way.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Different
Film
Subversive
Way
Audiences
Gotten
Copy Quote
There are times in my 30 years in the theater that I have come perilously close to losing faith in the one form of action I have in this life.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Losing
Copy Quote
To know nothing about yourself is to be constantly in danger of nothingness, those voids of non-being over which a man walks the tightrope of his life.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Men
Danger
Void
Copy Quote
Obviously when it comes to the question of telling stories about other people's lives in a situation as political as South Africa, you get to be political.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
South Africa
Africa
Copy Quote
As fascinated as I was by words on paper, it was matched by my fascination with words in people's mouths. The spoken word. And that is the world of theatre.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Fascination
People
Theatre
Copy Quote
I think the aloe is one of South Africa's most powerful, beautiful and celebratory symbols. It survives out there in the wild when everything else is dried.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Beautiful
Most Powerful
Powerful
South
Symbols
Thinking
Africa
Wild
Dried
Else
Everything Else
Survives
Copy Quote
With so many young playwrights, the true craft of writing for living voices is not what it used to be. They write for attention spans of 10 minutes between adverts.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Attention Spans
Craft
Playwrights
Spans
Voices
Copy Quote
A very close friend of mine keeps reminding me that since about the age of 50, I've been saying, 'I'm finished. I haven't got another one in me.' But somehow you do.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Age
Close Friends
Mines
Reminding
Close Friend
Somehow
Copy Quote
Night-time is when I brainstorm; last thing, when the family's asleep and I'm alone, I think about the next day's writing and plan a strategy for my assault on the blank page.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Blank
Night
Strategy
Thinking
Writing
Asleep
Blank Page
Brainstorm
Page
Copy Quote
Without white South Africa realizing what it had done - and on the basis of that realization having the courage to ask for forgiveness - there can really be no significant movement.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Courage
Forgiveness
Done
Movement
Realization
Significant
South Africa
White
Africa
Basis
Copy Quote
My life had been defined by the apartheid years. Now we were going into an era of democracy... and I believed that I didn't really have a function as a useful artist in that anymore.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Apartheid
Defined
Function
Believed
Copy Quote
For you in the West to hear the phrase 'All men are created equal' is to draw a yawn. For us, it's a miracle. We're starting out at rock bottom, man. But South Africa does have soul.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Men
Bottom
Equal
Miracle
Rocks
South Africa
Starting
West
Africa
Draw
Phrase
Yawn
Copy Quote
Nobody can take what I love away from me. I would like to believe that love is the only energy I've ever used as a writer. I've never written out of anger, although anger has informed love.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Anger
Energy
Love Is
Love Believe Love Is
Writer
Although
Nobody
Love Anger Love Is
Informed
Copy Quote
In South Africa, success never presented the problems that it presents in New York. In New York, if you happen to be the flavor of the month, a lot of nonsense comes with it into your life.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
New York
Flavor
Flavor Of The Month
Months
Nonsense
Problem
South Africa
Life Success Your
Africa
Month
Presented
Presents
York
Copy Quote
My life had been defined by the apartheid years. Now we were going into an era of democracy... and I believed that I didn't have really a function as an artist, as a useful artist, in that anymore.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Artist
Democracy
Years
Copy Quote
The toughest challenge I faced came right at the beginning of my career with 'Blood Knot,' which was trying to convince South African audiences that South African stories also had a place on the stage.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Blood
Convince
Stage
Stories
African
Audiences
Beginning
Came
Career
Challenge
South African
Toughest
Copy Quote
People come to the Fountain Theatre because they've got hearts that are working and they've got heads that are working. They use the Fountain Theatre because it puts them in touch with the world that they're living in.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Fountain
Theatre
World People Living
Touch
World Living People
Heads
Hearts
Puts
Copy Quote
There is a desperate tendency to try to legislate artists, to try to lay down rules for their obligations to society. Just leave artists alone. If you are a true artist, you will have a very finely tuned moral mechanism.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Artist
Moral
Trying
Copy Quote
I think all of my writing life led up to the writing of 'The Train Driver' because it deals with my own inherited blindness and guilt and all of what being a white South African in South Africa during those apartheid years meant.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Apartheid
Blindness
Deals
Guilt
My Own
South
South Africa
Thinking
Train
White
Writing
Africa
African
Meant
Driver
Inherited
Led
South African
Copy Quote
From early on there were two things that filled my life - music and storytelling, both of them provoked by my father. He was a jazz pianist and also a very good storyteller, an avid reader. He passed both those interests on to me.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Avid
Father
Filled
Jazz
Pianist
Provoked
Reader
Two
Life Good Music
Passed
Copy Quote
The reason I'm in San Diego is not because I want distance from South Africa but because I want proximity to the people I love. But I don't envy growing up in America. As ugly as aspects of it were, my biggest blessing was to be born a South African.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Blessing
Distance
Envy
Proximity
San Diego
South Africa
Ugly
Africa
African
Aspects
Diego
San
South African
Copy Quote
You cant legislate into existence an act of forgiveness and a true confession; those are mysteries of the human heart, and they occur between one individual and another individual, not a panel of judges sitting asking questions, trying to test your truth.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Asking Questions
Heart
Judging
Copy Quote
You can't legislate into existence an act of forgiveness and a true confession; those are mysteries of the human heart, and they occur between one individual and another individual, not a panel of judges sitting asking questions, trying to test your truth.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Forgiveness
Truth
Asking
Asking Questions
Confession
Existence
Heart
Human Heart
Individual
Sitting
Act
Another
Questions
True
Between
Those
Human
Judges
Legislate
Mysteries
Occur
Panel
Test
Copy Quote
You'll see that the strong, the affirmative, the positive voice in any of the plays I've written is that of a woman. My men are, well, not quite worthless, but they are certainly weak, and that reflects the reality I grew up with and what I think has in a sense shaped me.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Affirmative
Weak
Worthless
Shaped
Reflects
Copy Quote
For most of my writing life, I've refused to allow myself to believe that writing was a significant form of action. I always felt very uneasy about the fact that all I did was write in a situation as desperate as apartheid South Africa. Whether I was correct or not is a different issue.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Apartheid
Believe
Desperate
Issues
Significant
South Africa
Uneasy
Writing
Life Myself Always
Life Myself Believe
Africa
Correct
Refused
Copy Quote
What I quickly discovered is that our so-called new South Africa has as much material for a story-teller as the old one. The landscape hasn't really changed. Who is in power now is different to who was in power then, but the squatter camps grow like cancer, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Camps
Cancer
Different
Landscape
South Africa
Stories
Africa
Discovered
Old One
Poorer
Richer
So-Called
Copy Quote
I can't think of a single one of my plays that does not represent a coincidence between an external and an internal event. Something outside of me, outside even my own life, something I read in a newspaper or witness on the street, something I see or hear, fascinates me. I see it for its dramatic potential.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Coincidence
Dramatic
Events
My Own
Play
Single
Thinking
Witness
Life Me Street
External
Represent
Read
Event
Fascinates
Street
Hear
Internal
Newspaper
Outside
Plays
Copy Quote
'Master Harold' is about me as a little boy, and my father, who was an alcoholic. There's a thread running down the Fugard line of alcoholism. Thankfully I haven't passed it on to my child, a wonderful daughter who's stone-cold sober. But I had the tendency from my father, just as he had had it from his father.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Daughter
Sober
Thread
Master
Harold
Passed
Tendency
Thankfully
Copy Quote
How thin and insecure is that little beach of white sand we call consciousness. I've always known that in my writing it is the dark troubled sea of which I know nothing, save its presence, that carried me. I've always felt that creating was a fearless and a timid, a despairing and hopeful, launching out into that unknown.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Beach
Consciousness
Creating
Dark
Felt
Hopeful
Insecure
Launching
Sand
Sea
Writing
Unknown
Always Me Nothing
Carried
Despairing
Presence
Save
Thin
Timid
Troubled
Copy Quote
All of my life had been spent in the shadow of apartheid. And when South Africa went through its extraordinary change in 1994, it was like having spent a lifetime in a boxing ring with an opponent and suddenly finding yourself in that boxing ring with nobody else and realising you've to take the gloves off and get out and reinvent yourself.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Boxing
Finding Yourself
Shadow
Copy Quote
All of my life had been spent in the shadow of apartheid. And when South Africa went through its extraordinary change in 1994, it was like having spent a lifetime in a boxing ring with an opponent and suddenly finding yourself in that boxing ring with nobody else and realising you've to take the gloves off and get out, and reinvent yourself.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Apartheid
Boxing
Extraordinary
Finding Yourself
Gloves
Lifetime
Realising
Shadow
South Africa
Life Change Yourself
Had
Africa
Nobody
Ring
Through
Take
Else
Finding
Off
Having
My Life
Nobody Else
Opponent
Reinvent
Spent
Suddenly
Copy Quote
Anybody who thinks there's nothing wrong with this world needs to have his head examined. Just when things are going all right, without fail someone or something will come along and spoil everything. Somebody should write that down as a fundamental law of the Universe. The principle of perpetual disappointment. If there is a God who created this world, he should scrap it and try again.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Disappointment
Thinking
Writing
Copy Quote
I'm giving up acting. . . . I'm 66 and there are a number of celebrations I've got to get down on paper, and acting doesn't allow me to do that. It was a hell of a drug, performance. It's a great thrill, especially for a storyteller. But it can go. Directing can go. Writing can't go. And in terms of what lies ahead, I want to have a burning focus - almost like smoke coming up from the paper as I write.
Athol Fugard / Playwright
Giving Up
Lying
Writing
Copy Quote

Related Playwright Authors

George Bernard Shaw
Playwright
Saturday, Jul 26, 1856
Thursday, Nov 02, 1950
Zoe Akins
Playwright
Saturday, Oct 30, 1886
Wednesday, Oct 29, 1958
Young Jean Lee
Playwright
Thursday, May 30, 1974
Yasmina Reza
Playwright
Friday, May 01, 1959
Wilson Mizner
Playwright
Friday, May 19, 1876
Monday, Apr 03, 1933
William Inge
Playwright
Saturday, May 03, 1913
Sunday, Jun 10, 1973
William Congreve
Playwright
Friday, Jan 24, 1670
Wednesday, Jan 19, 1729
Will Eno
Playwright
Wendy Wasserstein
Playwright
Wednesday, Oct 18, 1950
Monday, Jan 30, 2006
Warren Leight
Playwright
Thursday, Jan 17, 1957
Walter Wykes
Playwright
Friday, Oct 31, 1969
Walter A. Davis
Playwright
Monday, Nov 09, 1942
W. Somerset Maugham
Playwright
Sunday, Jan 25, 1874
Thursday, Dec 16, 1965
Vijay Tendulkar
Playwright
Friday, Jan 06, 1928
Monday, May 19, 2008
Ulpian Fulwell
Playwright

View All Playwright Quotes

Top Authors

Wayne Dyer
Author
Friday, May 10, 1940
Saturday, Aug 29, 2015
John Keats
Poet
Saturday, Oct 31, 1795
Friday, Feb 23, 1821
Zig Ziglar
Author
Saturday, Nov 06, 1926
Wednesday, Nov 28, 2012
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essayist
Wednesday, May 25, 1803
Thursday, Apr 27, 1882
Thomas Sowell
Economist
Monday, Jun 30, 1930
Charles Spurgeon
Preacher
Thursday, Jun 19, 1834
Sunday, Jan 31, 1892
Walt Whitman
Poet
Monday, May 31, 1819
Saturday, Mar 26, 1892
William Blake
Poet
Monday, Nov 28, 1757
Sunday, Aug 12, 1827
John C. Maxwell
Author
Thursday, Feb 20, 1947
Edgar Allan Poe
Author
Thursday, Jan 19, 1809
Sunday, Oct 07, 1849
Paulo Coelho
Lyricist
Sunday, Aug 24, 1947
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Poet
Saturday, Aug 05, 1809
Thursday, Oct 06, 1892
Chanakya
Teacher
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thomas Aquinas
Priest
Tuesday, Jan 28, 1225
Wednesday, Mar 07, 1274
Jordan Peterson
Psychologist

View All Authors

Athol Fugard Quotes - Page 1

App & Tools

Related Playwright Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page

Stay Connected

App & Tools

Related Playwright Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page