Quotes by Playwrights - Page 8

loving for their mere artificiality those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue, as much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin.

Oscar Wilde

We have to distrust each other. It is our only defence against betrayal.

Tennessee Williams

That was all he wanted for himself – to give to her. Biff's mouth hardened. He had done nothing wrong but in him he felt a strange guilt. Why? The dark guilt in all men, unreckoned and without a name.

Carson McCullers

The basis of drama is ... is the struggle of the hero towards a specific goal at the end of which he realizes that what kept him from it was, in the lesser drama, civilization and, in the great drama, the discovery of something that he did not set out to discover but which can be seen retrospectively as inevitable. The example Aristotle uses, of course, is Oedipus.

David Mamet

He who is jealous, is never jealous of what you see, with what is imagined is enough.

Jacinto Benavente

He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. He would rather have misery with one than happiness with the other.

W Somerset Maugham

Throughout the human history millions have died because of the kings and the queens, because of the presidents and the prime ministers, because of the Caesars and the duces, because of all these little charlatans with big ego!

Mehmet Murat ildan

However hard life is, deep in our hearts we know that it is worth to continue till the end!

Mehmet Murat ildan

Education becomes most rich and alive when it confronts the reality of moral conflict in the world.

Howard Zinn

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,It droppeth as the gentle rain from heavenUpon the place beneath: it is twice blest;It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomesThe throned monarch better than his crown;His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,The attribute to awe and majesty,Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;But mercy is above this sceptred sway;It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,It is an attribute to God himself;And earthly power doth then show likest God'sWhen mercy seasons justice.

William Shakespeare

Who's they?" He wanted to know. "Who, specifically, do you think is trying to murder you?""Every one of them," Yossarian told him."Every one of whom?""Every one of whom do you think?""I haven't any idea.""Then how do you know they aren't?""Because..." Clevinger sputtered, and turned speechless with frustration. tClevinger really thought he was right, but Yossarian had proof, because strangers he didn't know shot at him with cannons every time he flew up into the air to drop bombs on them, and it wasn't funny at all.

Joseph Heller

Anybody who thinks there's nothing wrong with this world needs to have his head examined. Just when things are going all right, without fail someone or something will come along and spoil everything. Somebody should write that down as a fundamental law of the Universe. The principle of perpetual disappointment. If there is a God who created this world, he should scrap it and try again.

Athol Fugard

Besides, nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all.

Oscar Wilde

Within the infant rind of this small flowerPoison hath residence and medicine power.For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;Being tasted, stays all senses with the heart.Two such opposèd kings encamp them still,In man as well as herbs—grace and rude will. And where the worser is predominant,Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.(Inside the little rind of this weak flower, there is both poison and powerful medicine. If you smell it, you feel good all over your body. But if you taste it, you die. There are two opposite elements in everything, in men as well as in herbs—good and evil. When evil is dominant, death soon kills the body like cancer.)

William Shakespeare

The time approachesThat will with due decision make us knowWhat we shall say we have and what we owe.Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,But certain issue strokes must arbitrate;Towards which, advance th

William Shakespeare

Deep in each man is the knowledge that something knows of his existence. Something knows, and cannot be fled nor hid from.

Cormac McCarthy

Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

Langston Hughes

Whom the gods love dies young

Menander

Here is the fate of the man: To appear and to disappear!

Mehmet Murat ildan

He’s a pagan! I’m an artist! We’re naturally sympathetic!

Sidney Howard

Nichts Interessantes ist jemals richtig.

Oscar Wilde

Give me my Romeo. And when I shall die,Take him and cut him out in little stars,And he will make the face of heaven so fineThat all the world will be in love with nightAnd pay no worship to the garish sun.

William Shakespeare

To be a dwarf in peace is more honourable than to be a giant in war!

Mehmet Murat ildan

The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We feel morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension.

Václav Havel

As if the night has been created for the writers and as if the silence of it is the very inspiration itself!

Mehmet Murat ildan

Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by so quick you can hardly catch it going.

Tennessee Williams

Kara do you love Brad?'All my heart.'Then how can you let him leave next year?'I guess love isn’t enough sometimes.

Patrick Jones

What about our human rights,' demanded Carl, who'd gathered a small deputation of kids within minutes. 'There is a WAR ON,' said Crewman Devlin, shortly. I wondered if this meant grown-ups actually listen to you when there wasn't a war on, because somehow I was sceptical.

Sophia McDougall

Nor did he think of Celia any more, though he could sometimes remember having dreamt of her. If only he had been able to think of her, he would not have needed to dream of her.

Samuel Beckett

Rumi says love turns thorns into flowers. This means that hate turns flowers into thorns!

Mehmet Murat ildan

Or one meaning of here is “in this world, in this life, on earth. In this place or position, indicating the presence of,” or in other words, I am here. It also means to hand something to somebody—Here you are. Here, he said to her. Here both recognizes and demands recognition. I see you, or here, he said to her. In order for something to be handed over a hand must extend and a hand must receive. We must both be here in this world in this life in this place indicating the presence of.

Claudia Rankine

Simplicity and naturalness are the truest marks of distinction.

W Somerset Maugham

To learn to love, one must first learn to see.

Maurice Maeterlinck

Everybody walks to somewhere or everybody runs to somewhere simply because those somewheres don’t walk to us or don’t run to us! No struggle happens, no nothing happens!

Mehmet Murat ildan

What is a great success? You haven’t hurt anyone? That is a great success! You haven’t ignored any person? That is a great success! You haven’t lied? That is a great success! You haven’t deceived a person? That’s a great success! And now you see how very difficult to have a real success!

Mehmet Murat ildan

George, who is out somewhere there in the dark, who is good to me - whom I revile, who can keep learning the games we play as quickly as I can change them. Who can make me happy and I do not wish to be happy. And yes, I do wish to be happy. George and Martha: Sad, sad, sad. Whom I will not forgive for having come to rest; for having seen me and having said: “Yes, this will do”. Who has made the hideous, the hurting, the insulting mistake of loving… me, and must be punished for it. George and Martha… Sad, sad, sad.

Edward Albee

In the world I notice persons are nearly always stressed and have no time. Even Grandma often says that, but she and Steppa don't have jobs, so I don't know how persons with jobs do the jobs and all the living as well. In Room me and Ma had time for everything. I guess the time gets spread very thing like butter over all the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and stores, so there's only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit.

Emma Donoghue

Had a couple of drinks by myself. It was a mistake. Have I got to give up drinking, too? If I eliminate everything, how will I exist? I was somebody who loved Maurice and went with men and enjoyed my drinks. What happens if you drop all the things that make you I?

Graham Greene

With privilege comes responsibility, you must understand that. People expect us to lead by example and we shall not disappoint them.

Ben Elton

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.

T.S Eliot

Do I raise the dead when I put him behind bars? Then what'll I do it for? We used to shoot a man who acted like a dog, but honor was real there, you were protecting something. But here? This is the land of the great big dogs, you don't love a man here, you eat him!

Arthur Miller

The years are going by us like huge birds, whom Doom and Destiny and the schemes of God have frightened up out of some old gray marsh.

Lord Dunsany

No Statue of Liberty ever greeted our arrival in this country...we did not, in fact, come to the United States at all. The United States came to us.

Luis Valdez

No child’s face is dirty even if it is muddy, because an innocent face has so much light that anything comes onto it becomes almost invisible!

Mehmet Murat ildan

There is no moral to my song,I praise no right, I blame no wrong;I tell of things that I have seen,I show the man that I have beenAs simply as a poet canWho knows himself poet and man.

Thomas MacDonagh

Names are powerful and are prophecies of the future. The name you are called is a sign of what you are and what you would become.

Jude Idada

Man must be happy, as happy as a poor child cheerfully playing with his poor toy!

Mehmet Murat ildan

I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. Not to be ever regretting past, or anticipating the future; but to get the most that you can out of this very instant . It's like farming. You can have extensive farming and intensive farming; well, I am going to have intensive living after this. I'm going to joy every second, and I'm going to know I'm enjoying while I'm enjoying it. Most people don't live, they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose all sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal or not. I've decided to sit down by the way and pile up a lot of happiness.

Jean Webster

Sexual abuse of children now presents society with the ultimate crisis of patriarchy, when children refuse to protect their fathers by keeping secrets.

Beatrix Campbell

I really admired Cesar Chavez and Gandhi, but my form of activism would have to be the written word, not the empty stomach. My parents had brought my family t the United States because of the fear of empty stomachs.

Josefina López

Write if you will: but write about the world as it is and as you think it ought to be and must be—if there is to be a world. Write about all the things that men have written about since the beginning of writing and talking—but write to a point. Work hard at it, care about it. Write about our people: tell their story. You have something glorious to draw on begging for attention. Don’t pass it up. Don’t pass it up. Use it. Good luck to you. The Nation needs your gifts. Lorraine Hansberry speech, “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black,” given to Readers Digest/United Negro College Fund creative writing contest winners, NYC, May 1, 1964.

Lorraine Hansberry

Time was made for slaves.

John B. Buckstone

When the reality is no different than a beautiful dream, stick tightly to that reality!

Mehmet Murat ildan

They laid up in the shade of a rock shelf until past noon, scratching out a place in the gray lava dust to sleep, and they set forth in the afternoon down the valley following the war trail and they were very small and they moved very slowly in the immensity of that landscape.Come evening they hove toward the rimrock again and Sproule pointed out a dark stain on the face of the barren cliff. It looked like the black from old fires. The kid shielded his eyes. The scalloped canyon walls rippled in the heat like drapery folds.

Cormac McCarthy

May in Varanasi. 25° and wet. It's like the 6th circle of the inferno here, Edith - where they flail the arses off the howling heretics and the men who fuck marine life etc. NATO's stomping on the Balkans while India and Pakistan threaten one another with nukes. "Dead From the Waist Down" on MTV. The humidity's making me horny and mad. I miss Robin. In his new book, Ken Wilbur calls it "skin hunger". I feel like I'm building up a charge. Monsoon's on its way.

Grant Morrison

I am only a beer teetotaller not a champagne teetotaller.

George Bernard Shaw

I always thought there would be more interesting people at my wedding.

Sarah Ruhl

You never know. Somebody can seem cool and then you look in their music library and there's Katy Perry.

Kara Lee Corthron

MURRY: Why do we even celebrate the New Year? It's just this arbitrary quirk of how we measure time in years, right? Midnight tonight is the very same transition from day to day that we do every 24 hours. But this thing in my hands, it feels real in a way the numbered calendar box never does. Why? What makes midnight tonight any different?

Hillary DePiano

He was in that stage of love–and of liquor–where one is completely taken up with oneself, and can get along very well without the other party.

Françoise Sagan

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