Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Young people have got to start their own theaters, really. All good theater is a kind of mom-and-pop operation. Start your own theater.
But such occasions of excellence became less and less frequent. As her technique became sounder, [her] sincerity became less necessary.
My scripts are possibly too talkative. Sometimes I watch a scene I've written, and occasionally I think, 'Oh, for God's sake, shut up.'
Artists know that diligence counts as much, if not more, as inspiration; in art, as in politics, patience counts as much as revolution.
The way we tell our stories on stage is that we use spoken word to convey action, and in movies, we use visual images to convey action.
Of all the hokum with which this country [America] is riddled, the most odd is the common notion that it is free of class distinctions.
Bereavement is the deepest initiation into the mysteries of human life, an initiation more searching and profound than even happy love.
Of all the mediums, theatre is the one where you really need to have something to say - because it's just you, the words, and the space.
I am a man by virtue of my hands and my feet, my belly, my heart of meat, my stomach whose knots reunite me to the putrefaction of life.
A character is defined by the kinds of challenges he cannot walk away from. And by those he has walked away from that cause him remorse.
We all experience power struggles in our lives - at the workplace, with our friends, in our love lives. In a way, we're all politicians.
To seduce a woman famous for strict morals, religious fervor and the happiness of her marriage: what could possibly be more prestigious?
It's politely assumed that democracy is a means of containing and restraining violence. But violence comes not from genes but from ideas
I was at the front for thirteen months, and by the end of that time the sharpest perceptions had become dulled, the greatest words mean.
Security is elusive. It's impossible. We all die. We all get old. We all get sick. People leave us. People change us. Nothing is secure.
My kitchen linoleum is so black and shiny that I waltz while I wait for the kettle to boil. This pleasure is for the old who live alone.
He who desires a lifetime of happiness with a beautiful woman desires to enjoy the taste of wine by keeping his mouth always full of it.
Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.
Women upset everything. When you let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at one thing and you're driving at another.
Don't think you can frighten me by telling me that I am alone. France is alone. God is alone. And the loneliness of God is His strength.
I want to destroy ownership in order that possession and enjoyment may be raised to the highest point in every section of the community.
I think I am the first person of color to direct a major white play on Broadway. In 1993? That's astounding to me. And horrifying to me.
Well, there are some who claim I'm more of one nation than another, but that's not true, Eddie. I'm of all nations, I play no favorites.
I stood up. It was all too much. I could not even meet my own expectations, and to be asked to deal with all theirs too was suffocating.
Weep no more, nor sigh, nor groan, Sorrow calls no time that 's gone; Violets plucked, the sweetest rain Makes not fresh nor grow again.
Seems like God don't see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams - but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worthwhile.
The great thing about 'Vera Stark' is that my research was watching movies, screwball comedies, so I could literally sit back and relax.
When you're fighting for an increasingly smaller portion of the pie, you turn against each other; you create reasons to hate each other.
People listen to music with cavemen ears: Is it a bird song or the call of a lion? The audience at a musical is dancing in their hearts.
I try to naturally keep things to a manageable storytelling length, which is about two hours, so you try to cut out anything extraneous.
Sacrifice may be a flower that virtue will pluck on its road, but it was not to gather this flower that virtue set forth on its travels.
It was actually the enormous risks I took with my pictures, skating right up to the edge of non-acceptance, that paid off so handsomely.
This isn't champagne anymore. We went through the champagne a long time ago. This is serious stuff. The days of champagne are long gone.
What we seek we do not find - that would be too trim and tidy for so reckless and opulent a thing as life. It is something else we find.
Sensibility alters from generation to generation in everybody, whether we will or no; but expression is only altered by a man of genius.
This is the feeling for syllable and rhythm, penetrating far below the conscious levels of thought and feeling, invigorating every word.
Watching people toss all caution to the wind, who are ready to put their lives on the line for a dream, is something that is accessible.
The Sun shineth as well on the good as the bad: God from on high beholdeth all the workers of iniquity, as well as the upright of heart.
The causes we know everything about depend on causes we know very little about, which depend on causes we know absolutely nothing about.
Chekhov was capable of casually tossing off deplorable comments in his letters, combined with a very modern anger against anti-Semitism.
The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves only that you are yourself of small account.
As a writer one is allowed to have conversations with oneself. What is considered sane in writers is made for the rest of the human race.
There are people who, instead of listening to what is being said to them, are already listening to what they are going to say themselves.
When I free my body from its clothes, from all their buttons, belts, and laces, it seems to me that my soul takes a deeper, freer breath.
I'm vey bad at marshaling arguments. I can't, at a dinner party, explain why I'm a socialist and why others should be socialists as well.
I never found a professional environment that made the production of plays efficient. Teamwork is demanded, but there are very few teams.
It's politely assumed that democracy is a means of containing and restraining violence. But violence comes not from genes but from ideas.
Like all revolutions, the surrealist revolution was a reversion, a restitution, an expression of vital and indispensable spiritual needs.
If you were around in the '60s, you already know that music and art and love are a critical part of the revolution. This is how we fight.
I think that anytime you get clear about what your mission is or what your focus wants to be, things start to come together in your life.