Playwright Quotes

I'm not a playwright.

— Bob Dylan

It's a lucky life to be a playwright.

— John Guare

Be yourself. Ultimately just be yourself.

— Wole Soyinka

I never wanted to be a playwright.

— Zoe Kazan

“YOU HAVE TO ASK HARD QUESTIONS.”

— Tony Kushner

You can't make a living as a playwright. You can barely scrape by.

— Sam Shepard

I don't want to be a playwright, I want to be a rock and roll star.

— Sam Shepard

A play has two authors, the playwright and the actor.

— Eric Bentley

Like a dog, a playwright lives in an eternal present and a play is never closed.

— John Guare

The terrorist is the one with the small bomb.

— Brendan Behan

An actor without a playwright is like a hole without a doughnut.

— George Jean Nathan

I'm an actor and a playwright, and I don't earn much.

— Ellen McLaughlin

If you have a good idea, open your mouth and say something else.

— Keith Johnstone

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

— Stella Adler

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

— Marsha Norman

There are a number of contemporary playwrights whom I admire enormously, but that's not at all the same thing as being influenced.

— Edward Albee

if there's a spirit world why don't the ghosts of dead artists get together and inhibit bad playwrights from tormenting first-nighters?

— Gertrude Atherton

The person I would trust the most is my mom. She's just really creative... She's a playwright and she's a musician.

— Jazmine Sullivan

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

— Edward Albee

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

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

I moved to New York in 1980, and I met Beth Henley, who's a marvellous playwright and who I have a real…

— Holly Hunter

I come from a family of writers. My mom had been a writer, nonfiction books, and her mother was a playwright in…

— Noah Hawley

One of the things he liked about playwriting as to any other kind of writing is that a playwright is a w-r-i-g-h-t,…

— Simon McBurney

I was first introduced to August Wilson in the 80s when Charles Dutton did Ma Rainey and James Earl Jones and Courtney…

— Denzel Washington

If it's stage, the two most important artists are the actor and the playwright. If it's film, THE most important person is…

— Brad Dourif

I wanted to work with Barry [ Jenkins]. I am a big fan of his from Medicine for Melancholy years ago. Tarrell…

— Andre Holland

I’ve spent too many years explaining who and what I am repeatedly, so as of this moment I officially secede from both…

— Drew Hayden Taylor

Family dramas are tough, as a playwright. Most stories are about characters going on a trip or a new character coming to…

— Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

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

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

— William Monahan

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

— Vincent Canby

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

— Scott Raab

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

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

I suppose it is submerged realities that give to dreams their curious air of hyper-reality. But perhaps there is something else as…

— Anonymous

Neil [Simon] was considered our greatest [living playwright] at the time [of their marriage]. Maybe he still is; I don't know. But…

— Marsha Mason

I am an internationally produced playwright.

— Israel Horovitz

“In the world stage of actors, I'd rather prefer to be the playwright”

— Amit Padhy

... actors of the first water are not more plentiful than playwrights of genius.

— Sarah Bernhardt