Howard Barker Quotes

16 quotes in 237 categories

• Tragedy is the greatest art form of all. It gives us the courage to continue with our life by exposing us to the pain of…
• It is impossible – now, at this point in the long journey of human culture – to avoid the sense that pain is necessity; that…
• You emerge from tragedy equipped against lies. After the musical, you're anybody's fool
• A good play puts the audience through a certain ordeal,
• I’ve often taken important classical, biblical or literary stories and interrogated them. I have tried to reinvigorate Lot by interpreting it differently.
• I never 'say' anything in my work. I invent a world. Let others decide what is being 'said'.
• I submit all my plays to the National Theatre for rejection. To assure myself I am seeing clearly.
• I believe in poetic discourse, in the value of speech in a non-naturalistic way; it's speculative.
• I don't like sympathetic characters.
• I have plenty of political views and plenty of social and personal prejudices. I do not, however, value them.
• I'm not interested in entertainment.
• I'm not interested in observed reality.
• Theatre should be a taxing experience: the greatest achievement of a writer is to produce a character who creates anxiety.
• I am so far as I am aware not at all influenced by dramatists, expect for Shakespeare, who I have to say, it is impossible…
• We are suffocated by writers who want to enlighten us with their truths. For me, the theatre is beautiful because it is a secret, and…
• When I write, I am not giving a lecture, I am speculating on behavior. Sometimes this is dangerous, but it should be. As I say…

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