Voltaire's novel [Candid] offers us parallel universes, the possibility of entering into alternative worlds existing side by side, and this is something quite modern. Nested narratives and parallel universes are popular at the moment in many different art forms. — Mark Ravenhill Copy Share Image
Rereading Candide, I was struck by the link between optimism and the optimal, the idea that we have been placed in this optimal world… — Mark Ravenhill Copy Share Image
Twenty years ago, when you bumped into someone and asked how they were, they would say, 'Mustn't grumble' or 'Getting by': now they feel… — Mark Ravenhill Copy Share Image
Optimism and happiness are not the same thing, but they are becoming interchangeable, and it seemed to me that Voltaire's Candide gave me a… — Mark Ravenhill Copy Share Image
The American journalist Barbara Ehrenreich has written about this in her book Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World (2009) . She talks about the happiness industry, the rise of medication to make us happy and of self-help books, and the influence of all this on religion. In many ways religion has become another form of… — Mark Ravenhill Copy Share
The title's so upfront. It gives fair warning about the play's content. I'm writing about a kind of disenchantment, an anger, but quite a cool 90's anger, at a time when we're not very good at openly being angry. . . . I don't think I ever thought the title was titillating. I thought it was incredibly catchy. If the… — Mark Ravenhill Copy Share
There is a remarkable nimbleness of style, a balancing act of tone, in Voltaire, which is hard to bring off on stage. When you… — Mark Ravenhill Copy Share Image
I have adapted the whole book [Candid] into tweets of 140 characters, and these are being sent out daily, at the rate of eight… — Mark Ravenhill Copy Share Image
In the business world, the idea of positive thinking is absolutely entrenched. — Mark Ravenhill Copy Share Image
Theatre within theatre, when characters sees themselves on stage, always raises philosophical questions of choice and free will. — Mark Ravenhill Copy Share Image
Even within single sentences, there are sudden changes of register. And when the travellers go to Venice, they see a play by Voltaire! This… — Mark Ravenhill Copy Share Image
Translating Candide into tweets has really deepened my appreciation of his writing - it wouldn't work so well with nineteenth-century authors. Every single sentence… — Mark Ravenhill Copy Share Image
There is the question of language. Although the play [Candid] is not written in strict verse form, there is an underlying beat of rhyming… — Mark Ravenhill Copy Share Image
![“Voltaire's novel [Candid] offers us parallel universes, the possibility of entering into alternative worlds existing side by side, and this is something quite modern. Nested narratives and parallel universes are popular at the moment in many different art forms.” quote by Mark Ravenhill](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/a8a/mark-ravenhill-28127_alternatives_voltaire-s-novel-candid-offers-us-parall_2653885.jpg)
![“I have adapted the whole book [Candid] into tweets of 140 characters, and these are being sent out daily, at the rate of eight tweets per day .” quote by Mark Ravenhill](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/77b/mark-ravenhill-28127_140-character_i-have-adapted-the-whole-book-candid-int_1119776.jpg)
![“Even within single sentences, there are sudden changes of register. And when the travellers go to Venice, they see a play by Voltaire! This is a novel [Candid] which has narratives within narratives, such as when Cunégonde recounts her story.” quote by Mark Ravenhill](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/d9a/mark-ravenhill-28127_books_even-within-single-sentences-there-are-s_1366468.jpg)
![“There is the question of language. Although the play [Candid] is not written in strict verse form, there is an underlying beat of rhyming couplets, with echoes of Pope and the tradition of eighteenth-century philosophical verse.” quote by Mark Ravenhill](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/628/mark-ravenhill-28127_beats_there-is-the-question-of-language-althou_1657954.jpg)