Core Quotes by Terrence McNally

'American Playhouse' is very supportive of writers. That's really why writers like to write for 'American Playhouse' for very little money. They care about…

— Terrence McNally

With me, writing is 60% imagination, 30% people you know and 10% you don't know where it comes from.

— Terrence McNally

Cheating is not the American way. It is small, while we are large. It is cheap, while we are richly endowed. It is destructive,…

— Terrence McNally

Whenever you think you're writing what other people want to hear from you, and that it'll be commercial, you're doomed to disaster. Writing has…

— Terrence McNally

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.

— Terrence McNally

Work with good directors. Without them your play is doomed. At the time of my first play, I thought a good director was someone…

— Terrence McNally

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…

— Terrence McNally

I'm of the school 'Write what you know.' You can educate yourself, but the best writing usually comes from the heart.

— Terrence McNally

I like to surprise myself. I've always been attracted to projects where I don't know how they're going to turn out.

— Terrence McNally

I may think I have inalienable rights to be alive and happy, but I don't - life is a blessing.

— Terrence McNally

Technology promises to let us do anything from anywhere with anyone. But it also drains us as we try to do everything everywhere. In…

— Terrence McNally

In those days, you had to like one or the other. You couldn't like Sutherland AND Callas.

— Terrence McNally