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Quotes by Playwright
"Though lust do masque in ne'er so strange disguise she's oft found witty, but is never wise."
30
"A superfluity of wealth, and a train of domestic slaves, naturally banish a sense of general liberty, and nourish the seeds of that kind of independence that usually terminates in aristocracy."
30
"Every true man, sir, who is a little above the level of the beasts and plants does not live for the sake of living, without knowing how to live; but he lives so as to give a meaning and a value of his own to life."
30
"Tragedy is restful: and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it."
29
"There's man all over for you, blaming on his boots the fault of his feet."
28
"We have no reliable guarantee that the afterlife will be any less exasperating than this one, have we?"
28
"Well, all the plays that I was trying to write were plays that would grab an audience by the throat and not release them, rather than presenting an emotion which you could observe and walk away from."
27
"Public emergencies may require the hand of severity to fall heavily on those who are not personally guilty, but compassion prompts, and ever urges to milder methods."
27
"I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp."
27
"All the mistakes I ever made were when I wanted to say 'No' and said 'Yes'."
27
"You cannot conceive, nor can I, of the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God."
27
"Weak minds sink under prosperity as well as adversity; but strong and deep ones have two high tides."
26
"We are merely the stars tennis-balls, struck and bandied which way please them."
26
"Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value."
25
"I had met a young lady who wanted to be in the theater. It was Judy Holliday. She had somehow fallen down the steps of the Village Vanguard, which still exists today."
25
"A large nose is the mark of a witty, courteous, affable, generous and liberal man."
25
"Eternity is said not to be an extension of time but an absence of time, and sometimes it seemed to me that her abandonment touched that strange mathematical point of endlessness, a point with no width, occupying no space."
25
"It's always such a joy that you wake up in the morning and there's work to do."
25
"For as one star another far exceeds, So souls in heaven are placed by their deeds."
25
"If you greatly desire something, have the guts to stake everything on obtaining it."
25
"The human voice sounds thicker with a chorus and reverb than a dry signal."
24
"I didn't have a teacher like Sister Mary Ignatius."
24
"You must not demand the failure of your peers, because the more good things that are around in film, in television, in theater - why the better it is for all of us."
24
"Does the New York City Ballet affect other places? Yeah, it lets people know they should come to New York."
24
"Can anyone remember love? It's like trying to summon up the smell of roses in a cellar. You might see a rose, but never the perfume."
24
"The lines marking a penalty area are a disgrace to the playing fields of a public school."
23
"In tragedy every moment is eternity; in comedy, eternity is a moment."
23
"Have you noticed that life, with murders and catastrophes and fabulous inheritances, happens almost exclusively in newspapers?"
23
"I know not, sir, whether Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare, but if he did not, it seems to me that he missed the opportunity of his life."
23
"Do you believe in fairies? Say quick that you believe. If you believe, clap your hands!"
23
"To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now."
23
"A fact is like a sack - it won't stand up if it's empty. To make it stand up, first you have to put in it all the reasons and feelings that caused it in the first place."
23
"Propaganda is a soft weapon; hold it in your hands too long, and it will move about like a snake, and strike the other way."
23
"Unmarried couples should get married - that's an excellent tax avoidance measure, if a bit drastic."
23
"In no instance is there to be a musical or opera of Inherit the Wind because it doesn't sing. It's an intellectual play."
23
"A neurotic is a man who builds a castle in the air. A psychotic is the man who lives in it. A psychiatrist is the man who collects the rent."
Man,
23
"You know it is not my interest to pay the principal, or my principal to pay the interest."
23
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