Playwright Quotes · Page 3

It's the function of a playwright to write. Some playwrights write a large number of plays, some write a small number.

— Edward Albee

The British playwright Nina Raine is one of her generation's most promising talents.

— John Lahr

Life is only limited by our prejudices. Destroy them, and you cease to be at the mercy of yourself.

— Mina Loy

A lot of American playwrights seem to have a career as a playwright. I don't consider it a career at all.

— Sam Shepard

A playwright must be his own audience. A novelist may lose his readers for a few pages; a playwright never dares lose…

— Terence Rattigan

The one living playwright I admire without any reservation whatsoever is Samuel Beckett. I have funny feelings about almost all the others.

— Edward Albee

I didn't have a dream of being a press secretary, I had a dream of being a playwright; I had a dream…

— Pearl Cleage

It's a very tough time for the playwright. Broadway has become almost a musical comedy theme park with all these long-running shows.

— John Lithgow

[Harold Pinter] is a British playwright and is one of my favorite writers. Harold was very obsessed with when memory becomes mythology,…

— Baron Vaughn

I think I'll always be a better playwright than a pundit, but I believe that writers should be public intellectuals and that…

— Tony Kushner

Paris is the playwright's delight. New York is the home of directors. London, however, is the actor's city, the only one in…

— Orson Welles

Any actor worth his salt is looking for truth, the core of truth of the particular situation he is portraying, of that…

— Jason Robards

A skillful playwright might have a good time with the story of the assassination of President William McKinley, and especially with the…

— Russell Baker

It's a lucky circumstance when you get to usher in new work, because you are able to ask the playwright and the…

— Gideon Glick

Almost every college playwright or sketch or improv comedian was sort of aware of Christopher Durang - even kids in high school.…

— Mindy Kaling

“Damn everything but the circus!. . .The average 'painter' 'sculptor' 'poet' 'composer' 'playwright' is a person who cannot leap through a hoop…

— E.E. Cummings

I write in order to understand the images. Being what my agent . . . somewhat ruefully calls a language playwright, is…

— Ellen McLaughlin

“The words of his various writing instructors and professional mentors over the years came back to him at times like these, and…

— Vincent H. O'Neil

In this land of unlimited opportunity, a place where, to paraphrase Woody Allen, any man or woman can realize greatness as a…

— Vincent Canby

Theater is about interpretation and what an actor and what a director brings to a piece too. I'm open to it every…

— Nilo Cruz

Just as the historian can teach no real history until he has cured his readers of the romantic delusion that the greatness…

— George Bernard Shaw

I did a thing called 24 Hour Plays, a thing they do every year on Broadway. A bunch of playwrights and actors…

— Scott Raab

Poetry died as a commercial form and then it died as a serious art form. No one serious touches it. It used…

— William Monahan

I'm sensitive about the criticism [for not producing new playwrights], yes. But I'm hip to it as well. I read 500 new…

— Gregory A. Boyd

If I had not had music in my life, I would be the neurasthenic vision of the playwright.

— Marsha Norman

The ideas of the great playwrights are almost always larger than the experiences of even the best actors.

— Stella Adler

I see the playwright as a lay preacher peddling the ideas of his time in popular form.

— August Strindberg

I became fascinated by the fact that people write to give away rather than write to be read. It's the difference between…

— David Suchet

The utmost I can bear for myself in my best days is that I was one of the hundred best playwrights in…

— George Bernard Shaw

One of the things you hope you've done as a playwright is create roles that can sustain different interpretations.

— Tracy Letts

If the playwright is strong enough to hold on to reasonable objectivity in the face of either hostility or praise, he'll do…

— Edward Albee

I grew up doing theatre and spent a long time as a playwright. I still think very visually when I write.

— Libba Bray

I think that's foolishness on the part of the playwright to write about himself. People don't know anything about themselves.

— Edward Albee

My first acting class was taught by a little known playwright, David Mamet, who then cast me in my first play, opposite…

— John Mahoney

Because theatre is a story-telling art form, we feel entitled to assume that the playwright got there before we got there.

— Tom Stoppard

Theatre is a mirror, a sharp reflection of society. The greatest playwrights are moralists.

— Yasmina Reza

Not everyone is capable of madness; and of those lucky enough to be capable, not many have the courage for it.

— August Strindberg

Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.

— Edward Albee

I'm not a poet. I wish I was a poet but I'm not. I'm a playwright. And so I have a different…

— Tony Kushner

I became a playwright and screenwriter. Italian-Americans were my particular specialty. I liked the way they talked. There was something free in…

— John Patrick Shanley