1509 quotes by playwrights for you to enjoy

Maybe if I'd had more direct contact with death, I wouldn't find it so fascinating and I wouldn't write about it so much. Laura Wade

Death Find About Direct Direct Contact More Write Had Contact Maybe Much Fascinating

It's very lucky to be able to do a job where I get to sit about writing plays all day and going to the theatre. The downside, I suppose, is that you put it out there, and people are invited to like it or loathe it. Laura Wade

I had never thought of myself as a dramatist, and, for really good technical results, the thought came too late: a man of letters has become too wordy to write economically for the stage. Laurence Housman

But it has also enabled me to find my feet as a lecturer and a reader of my own plays to audiences who like to hear them; and that experience of immediate appreciation gives greater pleasure and more stimulus towards further activity than even the most laudatory of reviews. Laurence Housman

Me Appreciation Experience Own Immediate Further Pleasure Find My Own More Gives Towards Feet Like Most Also Reader Greater Audiences Hear Stimulus Lecturer Reviews Than Them Who Even Activity Plays

If I loved all the world as I do you, I shouldn't write books to it: I should only write letters to it, and that would be only a clumsy stage on the way to entire telepathy. Laurence Housman

You World Stage Books Way Would Would-Be All The World Entire Only Write Romantic Loved Clumsy Should Letters

My best chance is that, in a happy moment, I hit upon St Francis as the subject for a series of plays. Others might have written them better: but, as I have written them, the advantage will probably remain mine. Laurence Housman

Best Happy Better Will Others Mine Francis Remain Written Advantage Subject Hit Them Might Moment Series Chance Plays

My failure, during the first five or six years of my art training, to get set in the right direction, and the disappointment which it caused me, drove me the more persistently into writing as an alternative. Laurence Housman

The modern form of things had begun to appeal to me, also (as material for satire) politics, and the lives of the great and little, high up in the social scale. Laurence Housman

Politics Great Me Satire Scale High Had Also Material Up Begun Modern Form Little Social Appeal Lives Things

In many ways, theatre is more rewarding for a writer. I used to think it was like painting a wall - that when the play is finished, it's done - but now I realise it's more like gardening; you plant the thing, then you have to constantly tend it. You're part of a thing that's living. Lee Hall

You Gardening Theatre Plant Finished Painting Living Think Ways Constantly More Tend Writer Part Like Wall Done Rewarding Realise Then Used Many Now Play Thing

There is absolutely no point in not being a populist. What I feel emboldened to do is to take something which is a minority interest and make it accessible without dumbing it down. I'm such an enthusiast for peculiar things, things that are perhaps a bit avant-garde, and try and involve everyone. Lee Hall

Try Minority Down Everyone Bit Enthusiast Something No Point Point Absolutely Take Feel Perhaps Involve Make Without Accessible Being Which Interest Avant-Garde Populist Things Peculiar

I don't think theatre has changed; it's society that has changed. Lee Hall

Theatre Think Society Changed

The theatre has always been voraciously omnivorous. Dramatists have always raided every medium to find grist to their mill: myths, folk tales, newspapers, novels, films, works of art of all kinds. Lee Hall

Art Theatre Every Films Medium Folk Find Kinds Myths Tales Always Been Newspapers Works Novels Mill

I don't really find things funny unless they're deeply tragic at the same time. I think if you're funny just for the sake of being funny, it's just frivolous nonsense. To me, all the best comic plays have been written about really serious and rather bleak things. Lee Hall

Funny Time Best Me You Think Unless Find About Rather Written Bleak Comic Nonsense Sake Been Tragic Frivolous Same Just Same Time Being Being Funny Really Serious Deeply Things Plays

I come from a tradition where the writer writes a play for the actors, rather than for himself, and the dialogue is made to work onstage, so it needs actors to help shape it. So you never get a play right straightaway. Lee Hall

Profits on the exchange are the treasures of goblins. Lope de Vega

Exchange Profits Treasures

I think it is about time that equipped women began to take on some of the ethical questions which a male-dominated culture has produced and dissect and analyze them quite to pieces in a serious fashion. It is time that 'half the human race' had something to say about the nature of its existence. Lorraine Hansberry

Time Fashion Nature Culture Women Half Think Analyze Say Some About Something Take Had Pieces Equipped Existence Questions Began Quite Human Which Race Them Ethical Produced Human Race Serious Dissect

Quotes by Playwrights