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Quotes by Playwright
"A genius knows how to make himself easily understood without being obvious about it."
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"A woman who is willing to be herself and pursue her own potential runs not so much the risk of loneliness, as the challenge of exposure to more interesting men - and people in general."
46
"It may be a mistake, that man, in a state of nature, is more disposed to cruelty than courtesy."
46
"I can't go on. I'll go on."
46
"The apple cannot be stuck back on the Tree of Knowledge; once we begin to see, we are doomed and challenged to seek the strength to see more, not less."
46
"I have the feeling it will influence my future writing to the extent that without any material worries I could develop a greater ease, even lightheartedness, in my writing."
46
"Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
46
"For the subtlest folly proceeds from the subtlest wisdom."
46
"At the end of what is called the 'sexual life' the only love which has lasted is the love which has everything every disappointment every failure and every betrayal which has accepted even the sad fact that in the end there is no desire so deep as the simple desire for companionship."
46
"I've got no mother, no wife, no kids. I had, but my mother's dead, and I lost my wife and my kids when I had my trouble. Women are bitches. It's hard for a chap to live without any affection in his life."
46
"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it."
46
"I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, really in suburbia, so my mother was in community theatre plays."
46
"Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy."
46
"If I wasn't in the theater, I would be a hermit."
46
"Passion is destructive. It destroyed Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde, Parnell and Kitty O'Shea. And if it doesn't destroy it dies. It may be then that one is faced with the desolation of knowing that one has wasted the years of one's life, that one's brought disgrace upon oneself, endured the frightful pang of jealousy, swallowed every bitter mortification, that one's expended all one's tenderness, poured out all the riches of one's soul on a poor drab, a fool, a peg on which on hung one's dreams, who wasn't worth a stick of chewing gum."
46
"Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul."
46
"And what would be great numbers in a Broadway show are now on stage of the New York City Ballet."
45
"Oppression does not make for hearts as big as all outdoors. Oppression makes us big and small. Expressive and silenced. Deep and dead."
45
"It's true Heaven forbids some pleasures, but a compromise can usually be found."
45
"I have my faults, but changing my tune is not one of them."
45
"So I decided to start writing plays, and went to Yale."
45
"For if there is anything to one's praise, it is foolish vanity to be gratified at it, and if it is abuse - why one is always sure to hear of it from one damned good-natured friend or another!"
45
"Nature uses human imagination to lift her work of creation to even higher levels."
45
"You too must not count too much on your reality as you feel it today, since like yesterday, it may prove an illusion for you tomorrow."
45
"If you engage people on a vital, important level, they will respond."
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"Let no man fear to die, we love to sleep all, and death is but the sounder sleep."
45
"Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly."
45
"There's no possibility of being witty without a little ill-nature."
45
"My body has certainly wandered a good deal, but I have an uneasy suspicion that my mind has not wandered enough."
45
"Sudden resolutions, like the sudden rise of mercury in a barometer, indicate little else than the variability of the weather."
45
"I make mistakes; I'll be the second to admit it."
45
"I think now that the great thing is not so much the formulation of an answer for myself, for the theater, or the play-but rather the most accurate possible statement of the problem."
45
"You can create a good impression on yourself by being right, he realizes, but for creating a good impression on others there's nothing to beat being totally and catastrophically wrong."
45
"Beauty is one of the rare things which does not lead to doubt of God."
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"Eroding solidarity paradoxically makes a society more susceptible to the construction of substitute collectives and fascisms of all kinds."
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"Art is the close scrutiny of reality and therefore I put on the stage only those things that I know happen in our society."
45
"I present myself to you in a form suitable to the relationship I wish to achieve with you."
45
"The praise that comes from love does not make us vain, but more humble."
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"True, Heaven prohibits certain pleasures; but one can generally negotiate a compromise."
45
"A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority."
45
"Integrity of life is fame's best friend, which nobly, beyond death, shall crown in the end."
45
"Faith without works is like a bird without wings; though she may hop with her companions on earth, yet she will never fly with them to heaven."
45
"Do you know how helpless you feel if you have a full cup of coffee in your hand and you start to sneeze?"
45
"Black Comedy is a farce that is played in the dark, as you know, with the lights full on. It's the Chinese convention of reversing light and dark, and exactly where anybody is at any given moment is the play."
45
"Men create real miracles when they use their God-given courage and intelligence."
45
"One always spoke of her like that in the third person as though she were not there. Sometimes she seemed invisible like peace."
45
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