Playwright Quotes · Page 4

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

“The famous playwright once said, "To sleep, perchance to dream." But I say, "Why wait until we're asleep?”

— D. L. Silverman

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

The mission of the playwright is to look in his heart and write, to write whatever concerns him at the moment; to…

— Robert Anderson

In my collection, to me at least, the theatre of the past lives again and those long-dead playwrights and actors have in…

— Robertson Davies

Man is not himself only...He is all that he sees; all that flows to him from a thousand sources...He is the land,…

— Mary Hunter Austin

In terms of collaboration, working on a new piece is always thrilling, as I'm sure most people would say, because the playwright…

— Gideon Glick

When you tell people you're a playwright, their eyes sort of glaze over. But when you say you write the 'Fantastic Four'…

— Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

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

People ask me when I decided to become a playwright, and I tell them I decide to do it every day. Most…

— Suzan-Lori Parks

When I used to teach writing, what I would tell my playwriting students is that while you're writing your plays, you're also…

— Tony Kushner

Choose Life over the other stuff. Get out of your head. Live. Dress up. Eat. Touch people. Help out. Give up. Love…

— John Patrick Shanley

If you're a playwright, unless you're really lacking in get-up-and-go, you can always get your play up somewhere. You can't necessarily make…

— Tony Kushner

I want to be a playwright the way people are bank tellers. I want to keep doing it and have it go…

— Richard Greenberg

If a playwright is funny, the English look for a serious message, and if he's serious, they look for a joke.

— Sacha Guitry

I was brought up by a single mother. She was learning to be a playwright so I had an incredible childhood. She…

— Lucy Beaumont

My favorite playwright is probably Samuel Beckett, and he was always laughing at the abyss.

— John Cameron Mitchell

Yes, I am a failed playwright. I had three shows on Broadway by the time I was 30. They all flopped, and…

— William Goldman

The economics of being a playwright are abysmal. I like to think of the work I do out in Hollywood as a…

— Beau Willimon

As a playwright, you are a torturer of actors and of the audience as well. You inflict things on people.

— Tony Kushner

My mother was an actress and a director, as well. And my father was a playwright and poet.

— Maximilian Schell

Stage is the place of the playwright: you're guided by great actors and directors, but it's the playwright's word on the page…

— Abi Morgan

All the reasons which made the initiation of physical force evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative.

— Ayn Rand

But here's the thing: what you do as a screenwriter is you sell your copyright. As a novelist, as a poet, as…

— Beth Henley

I'm one of those lazy actors; I like to take what the playwright wrote and work with that.

— Cherry Jones

I was a writer. I just wasn't a very good one. I was lucky enough to have a playwriting teacher who told…

— Liev Schreiber

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

— Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

I feel like I'm a natural-born playwright, but the prose thing has always mystified me. How to keep it going? How do…

— Sam Shepard

If the playwright knew every little thing about his play, why bother? There must be discovery all the time, otherwise why bother…

— Phylicia Rashad