"Whenever you think you're writing what other people……" — Terrence McNally
"Whenever you think you're writing what other people want to hear from you, and that it'll be commercial, you're doomed to disaster. Writing has to be as truthful and specific as we can make it. The minute we think that we're reaching more people and pleasing them, we get general. And audiences sense that and turn away, shun us."
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Terrence McNally
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11 Quotes by Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally has 11 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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There are so many rules about play writing. I'd have a nervous breakdown if I followed them.
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I don't think I've ever written anything even remotely naturalistic. The closest probably would be seen as 'Frankie and Johnny,'…
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I like to surprise myself. I've always been attracted to projects where I don't know how they're going to turn…
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Write plays that matter. Raise the stakes. Shout, yell, holler, but make yourself heard. It's time for playwrights to reclaim…
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Work with good directors. Without them your play is doomed. At the time of my first play, I thought a…
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I may think I have inalienable rights to be alive and happy, but I don't - life is a blessing.
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I'm of the school 'Write what you know.' You can educate yourself, but the best writing usually comes from the…
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I've had wonderful collaborators. They're very different, just as actors are. Working on a show with Nathan Lane is different…
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Young people have got to start their own theaters, really. All good theater is a kind of mom-and-pop operation. Start…
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Cheating is not the American way. It is small, while we are large. It is cheap, while we are richly…
See all 11 quotes by Terrence McNally »
More Audience Quotes
This quote is filed under Audience Quotes,
one of 3,330 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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I want to do what I want when I want to do it not be dictated to by audiences.
— Dario Argento
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I believe in anything that will engage the audience and make the story more effective.
— J. J. Abrams
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I began to work the stage and get the audience into it. I also learned how to have fun out…
— Aaliyah
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Confronting a stadium audience, you can't see the whites of their eyes. It's just an amorphous mass of noise and,…
— Rowan Atkinson
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You see, the interesting thing about books, as opposed, say, to films, is that it's always just one person encountering…
— Paul Auster
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If you really want to help the American theater, don't be an actress, dahling. Be an audience.
— Tallulah Bankhead
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I don't feel like I need to preach to the world or nothing like that. I just feel like I…
— Erykah Badu
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I have the ability to sing with emotion and feeling, but if you say I sound like Billie Holiday, that's…
— Erykah Badu
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You're creating a different world and the actor's job is to be able to convince the audience to enter into…
— Christian Bale
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I am a real ham. I love an audience. I work better with an audience. I am dead, in fact,…
— Lucille Ball
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I always feel that art in general and acting in particular should make the audience a little uncomfortable, to slap…
— Antonio Banderas
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I'm trying to build a strong business. I want to create new stars, new shows and new products for my…
— Tyra Banks
See all 3,330 Audience Quotes »