Top 944 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Playwrights - Page 10

There's no reason to bring religion into it. I think we ought to have as great a regard for religion as we can, so as to keep it out of as many things as possible.

The firmest purpose of a woman's heart to well-timed, artful flattery may yield.

I'm not always interested in Hollywood norms and boy-next-door kind of characters.

Theater is perhaps one of the few places left where we are in a dialogue right now. Everything has become so partisan, and the rhetoric has become so heated, that conversation is almost impossible.

Everything is relative. Is the Internet fast? Not for most people. Is it always on? Yes, for cable modem and DSL users but that represents a tiny percentage of users.

Tea! thou soft, sober, sage and venerable liquid;- thou female tongue-running, smile-smoothing, heart-opening, wink-tippling cordial, to whose glorious insipidity I owe the happiest moment of my life, let me fall prostrate.

I just started to want to be more hands on, and again, because of the nature of this job which was to evaluate the writing apart from the production, I got clear on what a director did and I became interested in directing, so I started to do that in the late 80s.

The self-hatred that destroys is the waste of unfulfilled promise.

Reading was such a formative part of my childhood (along with 'Loony Tunes'), that it is difficult to pin point the most influential book. But, under an interrogation light I would probably have to say 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte.

The checks and balances is a way to prevent government from either devolving into an autocratic tyranny or an autocratic mob mentality.

But I still read Shaw on a regular basis. What I love is the nakedness of the polemic and the irresistible good humour. For me, 'Major Barbara' is the greatest of all the plays in that it starts from the rational and proceeds to the ecstatic in a spectacular way, and leaves you very confused if you cling to Euclidean logic.

If you're trying to write something that you don't understand and embrace at the very core of you, it's not going to turn out with quite the authenticity and passion it should have.

Gay love, God save it, so soone hotte, so soone colde.

The law is not a 'light' for you or any man to see by; the law is not an instrument of any kind. The law is a causeway upon which so long as he keeps to it a citizen may walk safely.

Them white people made hate. They made hate just like they had a formula for it and followed that formula down to the last exact gallon of misery put in. Well ... that's what they made and that's what they got.

I'm Irish as hell: Kelly on one side, Shanley on the other. My father had been born on a farm in the Irish Midlands. He and his brothers had been shepherds there, cattle and sheep, back in the early 1920s. I grew up surrounded by brogues and Irish music, but stayed away from the old country till I was over 40. I just couldn't own being Irish.

Humanity's become a product and when humanity is a product, you get Auschwitz and you get Chair.

The bulk of mankind have indeed, in all countries in their turn, been made the prey of ambition.

It's always something to remind you that everything ain't never gonna be alright!

It is not true that drink changes a man's character. It may reveal it more clearly.

I love working with a set designer because, in many respects, you meet the set designer before you meet the actors. So it's a chance for me as a director to figure out what I'm thinking and to explore how the space is going to actually be activated.

It's unfortunate we've never been just songwriters.

And suddenly, like light in darkness, the real truth broke in upon me; the simple fact of Man, which I had forgotten, which had lain deep buried and out of sight; the idea of community, of unity.

It is time that we take control and find a way to curtail the explosive costs of health care. Small businesses deserve a chance to channel these funds toward other needs, such as expanding and creating more jobs for the economy.

All of my work is sort of fed by a question, a need to understand the world and why the world is what it is.

In addition to the problem of public confidence, hiring a relative also causes problems within the government organization. It can undermine the morale of government officials. It can cause confusion about what the lines of authority are; in other words, the relative may have a particular title, but many may perceive the relative's role as even more important than the title would suggest. It may be very difficult to say no to the president's son-in-law.

Laughter does not please the mighty.

Well, one thing you can say for masturbation... you certainly don't have to look your best.

I needed to enhance the outward threat to Rachel.In the book [Girl on the Train], her inner threat is so strong; the fear of herself and her inability to remember and the false memories. In the film [Girl on the Train]I wanted to increase the exterior threat. So that's why Allison's part was bigger and was an important part of the climax of the film.

There is no sincerer love than the love of food.

There are two kinds of people in one's life-people whom one keeps waiting-and the people for whom one waits

My writing isn't actually guided by issues. I know it seems that way, but I don't sit down and think, Oh, there's this issue I'm bothered about. I only write about things that directly impact my life. When I write, there's a pain that I have to reach, and a release I have to work toward for myself. So it's really a question of the particular emotional circumstance that I want to express, a character that appears, a moment in time, and then I write the play backwards.

IBM has taken a leadership role in this area and is prepared to be a technology partner with companies around the world to take advantage of these new developments.

Some people talk about children wanting to be born as though somewhere out there in the collective unconscious there's a spirit, or a thought or an idea that wants to be born. And I sometimes feel that way about stories... that they're there and they want to be told.

That's our mirror. Every dip, every crash, every bubble that's burst, a testament to our brilliant stupidity. This one gave us the railroads. This one the Internet. This one the slave trade. And if we hope to do anything about saving the environment, or getting to other worlds, we'll need a bubble for that too. Everything I've ever done in my life worth anything has been done in a bubble: in a state of extreme hope and trust and stupidity.

All you need in the world is love and laughter. That's all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other.

It was a roller-coaster process. For a long time I had no idea what I was doing. I wasn't writing with an outline. And, rare for me, I wrote scenes out of sequence. . . . I didn't understand the play when I wrote it. It was something I'd give in to. It happens to me periodically. I give over and write whatever comes to me and I don't know what it means and then I do. It's thrilling.

One of the best things that happened for me as a playwright is becoming a comic-book writer.

A good jolly is worth what you pay for it.

The heart that is to be filled to the brim with holy joy must be held still.

Modern American marriage is like a wire fence. The woman's the wire -the posts are the husband's.

I want everybody to be smart. As smart as they can be. A world of ignorant people is too dangerous to live in.

Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once it slips, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable.

If you are making music for other people, you will have to be aware of how people relate to it.

Guys who dress up like Santa Claus, see, and give presents away do it because when they was young they must have did something bad and they feel guilty about it. So now they do something they think is good to make up for it, see?

Truth has to be credible or it makes as much trouble as any lie!

In everything I've done, I've always tried to make room for indigenous people, to include them.

As a main ingredient to the show, it has to have truth, represent truth, or else it won't last.

I really needed to dramatize and clarify that Rachel was taking strides towards her own healing and her own sobriety - and that she was actually thoroughly frightened about what she may have done.This was something that was so beautifully done in the book [The Girl on the Train] through inner monologue, but I couldn't just have a whole film filled with inner monologues. So going to Alcoholics Anonymous was a very simple solution to that problem.

I never 'say' anything in my work. I invent a world. Let others decide what is being 'said'.

What was good was that I had friends who were actors and in theatre who were really good, because I think my strengths were visual, like pictorial.

We never forget those who make us blush.

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.

Never to be squandered.....the miracle of another human being.

We always weaken whatever we exaggerate.

We are born of risen apes, not fallen angels.

Have you ever been so melancholy, that you wanted to fit in the palm of your beloved's hand? And lie there, for fortnights, or decades, or the length of time between stars? In complete silence?

I was formed by 'The Forsyte Saga' marathon. There was something about seeing all those events telescoped that was unbelievably moving: that sense of time as something that can be tinkered with.

Nothing is improbable until it moves into past tense.

The problem is these days people don't watch television together. The husband is downstairs watching The Game and the wife is upstairs watching The Good Wife. They don't need a show they can watch together. What family dramas are on now that are working?