72 Playwright Quotes for You to Enjoy

When I was sixteen or seventeen, I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a playwright. But everything I wrote, I thought, was weak. And I can remember falling asleep in tears because I had no talent the way I wanted to have. Francis Ford Coppola

Remember Tears Thought Playwright Everything Seventeen Way Weak No Talent Writer Had Talent Wrote Because Falling Sixteen Wanted Asleep

When I was around eight, I learned how to touch-type at school, and I received a computer as a present. I started writing plays, and for many years I thought I would be a playwright. Gabrielle Zevin

Writing School Thought Playwright Would Would-Be Computer Learned Around How Years Eight Many Present Received Started Plays

Athol Fugard became famous as a playwright, so although 'Tsotsi' the book was written in the '60s, it was only published in the '80s. It was then optioned pretty much every year by producers. I think the problem was that holding onto its period setting made it very hard to get finance. Gavin Hood

Finance Book Problem Made Year Holding Every Think Playwright Setting Pretty Only Onto Written Period Although Became Very Get Famous Then Much Producers Hard Published

The instinct to impersonate produces the actor; the desire to provide pleasure by impersonations produces the playwright; the desire to provide this pleasure with adequate characterization and dialogue memorable in itself produces dramatic literature. George Pierce Baker

Playwright Dramatic Pleasure Adequate Characterization Memorable Impersonate Instinct Dialogue Provide Itself Literature Produces Actor Desire

I moved to New York in 1980, and I met Beth Henley, who's a marvellous playwright and who I have a real personal and professional association with, in 1982. I met her in a stalled elevator - we were the only two people in there - and she's been one of my very dearest friends since. Holly Hunter

People Met Playwright Only Marvellous Since New She Real Dearest Were Been Friends Very Personal York Moved New York Who Professional Elevator Her Two Two People Association

Any actor worth his salt is looking for truth, the core of truth of the particular situation he is portraying, of that play. The playwright, the actors and the audience, that's what we're all there seeking. When it's working, time is destroyed. Sometimes 'Moon,' a play of four hours, would go by in a snap of the fingers. Jason Robards

Truth Time Worth Sometimes Moon Looking Salt Situation Playwright Destroyed Would Seeking Fingers He Particular Hours Audience Go His Snap Any Working Actor Play Four Portraying Core

When I was a playwright earlier in my career - my senior project in high school was my first produced play - I used to put on the title page: 'A tragedy with laughs.' Jeff Lindsay

School First Playwright Project Laughs High High School Put Tragedy Senior Title Produced Page Used Play Earlier Career

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

Abyss Playwright Favorite Laughing He Beckett Always Samuel

I was born in Newton, MA. Graduated from Brown University in 2001 with honors in English as a playwright. I attended the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Center in Waterford, CT just after Brown. I moved to NYC in 2002 and was a professional... waiter, for 3 years. John Krasinski

Stage is so important because it teaches me how to convey character with words - how to convey how a character reacts by the way they appear on stage. I can usually tell a playwright from someone who has never written for the stage. Did the character work? Did the dialogue reveal who the character is? Kelly Masterson

It's an odd mix, the life of a playwright. Laura Wade

Life Playwright Odd Mix

How can even the best novelist or playwright invent someone like Augustus Caesar or Catherine the Great, Galileo or Florence Nightingale? How can screenwriters create better action stories or human dramas than exist, thousand upon thousand, throughout the many centuries of recorded history? Margaret MacMillan

Best Great History Better Invent Action Playwright Dramas Thousand Someone Recorded Throughout Caesar Like Catherine How Exist Than Human Stories Galileo Centuries Create Many Even Novelist Florence

Of course, you would have to be insane to hope your child grows up to be a playwright or poet. Given the odds, you would have to be quite cavalier about your children's future. Mark Helprin

Hope Future You Poet Odds Playwright Insane Would About Given Course Up Child Quite Children Your Your Child Grows

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

Life Music Vision My Life Playwright Would Would-Be Had

With a stage play, they can't cut a word; you can be in rehearsals every day, you cast it, you cast the director, too; the amount of control for a playwright is almost infinite, so you have that control over the finished product. Martin McDonagh

Vidal was a novelist, an essayist, a playwright, a screenwriter, and many other things. Buckley started a magazine, hosted a TV show, lead a political movement, and was a master debater. They were multihyphenates in a way that you rarely see anymore. Morgan Neville

You Political Master Playwright Other Way TV TV Show See Magazine Rarely Lead Were Political Movement Essayist Movement Anymore Screenwriter Show Many Novelist Things Started

I didn't have a dream of being a press secretary, I had a dream of being a playwright; I had a dream of being a novelist and a poet. Pearl Cleage

Poet Playwright Secretary Press Press Secretary Dream Had Being Novelist

It is very, very difficult for a playwright to write a scene in which a young man has his first deep experience of sex with a girl whom he found immensely attractive, is fully satisfied by this event and gets up and blinds a lot of horses. Peter Shaffer

Man Experience Sex Girl First Young Satisfied Difficult Playwright Immensely Scene Horses Write He Attractive Blinds His Lot Up Very Gets Which Young Man Fully Deep Whom Event Found

It seems that the hurdle you have to jump over is everyone's informed opinion. When you're a young playwright, you're probably too precarious in your own technique to understand that when these seemingly informed opinions are contradicting each other, it becomes this paralyzing monolith. Richard Greenberg

I want to be a playwright the way people are bank tellers. I want to keep doing it and have it go steadily and smoothly. Richard Greenberg

People Playwright Way Steadily Smoothly Doing Go Bank Want Keep

Portraying Mozart is a scary task. Whenever I'm asked to portray actual historic figures, it comes with extra accountability. Not just to your director and playwright, but to the man himself and the beloved persona that the public forms. Rob McClure

Playwright Quotes

No more playwright quotes