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Quotes by Playwright
"A large nose is the mark of a witty, courteous, affable, generous and liberal man."
55
"You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism."
55
"It is my art. I am better at it than I ever was. And I will do it as long as I can. When you reach a certain age you can slough off what is unnecessary and concentrate on what is. And why not?"
54
"Weak minds sink under prosperity as well as adversity; but strong and deep ones have two high tides."
53
"We have no reliable guarantee that the afterlife will be any less exasperating than this one, have we?"
53
"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."
53
"Why doesn't hatred kill desire? I would have given anything to sleep. I would have behaved like a schoolboy if I had believed in the possibility of a substitute. But there was a time when I had tried to find a substitute, and it hadn't worked."
53
"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."
52
"To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now."
52
"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."
52
"I think it's a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one's self."
52
"When I go to hell, I mean to carry a bribe: for look you, good gifts evermore make way for the worst persons."
52
"In tragedy every moment is eternity; in comedy, eternity is a moment."
51
"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."
51
"I mean he's a very famous director... they're not going to put their... and he's very tough, he doesn't like interference at all, so he kept them at bay."
51
"Many dotcoms recruited people from existing companies who were quite experienced in finance, marketing, distribution and other disciplines but not necessarily experienced in the Web culture."
50
"The ultimate tendency of civilization is towards barbarism."
50
"We are merely the stars tennis-balls, struck and bandied which way please them."
50
"If you greatly desire something, have the guts to stake everything on obtaining it."
50
"For several days after my first book was published, I carried it about in my pocket and took surreptitious peeps at it to make sure the ink had not faded."
49
"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."
49
"I didn't have a teacher like Sister Mary Ignatius."
49
"We poison our lives with fear of burglary and shipwreck, and, ask anyone, the house is never burgled, and the ship never goes down."
49
"Waste brings woe, and sorrow hates despair."
49
"When you are forty, half of you belongs to the past... And when you are seventy, nearly all of you."
Past,
49
"To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter."
48
"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 not to be influenced by if you hold language to be the major element of theatre."
48
"If you accept your limitations you go beyond them."
48
"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."
48
"Life has a way of setting things in order and leaving them be. Very tidy, is life."
48
"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."
48
"Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil - or else an absolute ignorance."
48
"To write simply is as difficult as to be good."
48
"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."
47
"Before this address to my countrymen is closed, I beg leave to observe, that as a new century has dawned upon us, the mind is naturally led ot contemplate the great events that have run parallel with and have just closed the last."
47
"Some people carry their heart in their head and some carry their head in their heart. The trick is to keep them apart yet working together."
47
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