Edward Albee quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Edward Albee

Edward Albee Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Edward Albee on Wise Famous Quotes.

There's no limit to you, is there?

I have a fine sense of the ridiculous, but no sense of humor.

That's what happens in plays, yes? The shit hits the fan.
Edward Albee

Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.

I created myself, and I'll attack anybody I feel like.

You're alive only once, as far as we know, and what could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it?

Creativity is magic, don't examine it too closely.

I dance like the wind.

The government is far more interested in taking, in regulated taking, than in promoting spontaneous generosity.

Sincerity doesn't mean anything. A person can be sincere and be more destructive than a person who is insincere.

First, I'll kill the dog with kindness, and if that doesn't work, I'll just kill him.

Writing should be useful. If it can't instruct people a little bit more about the responsibilities of consciousness there's no point in doing it.

Lady, you can't fuck a metaphor.

Any definition which limits us is deplorable.

If you're willing to fail interestingly, you tend to succeed interestingly.

You want to dance with me, angel tits?

That's the happiest moment. When it's all done. When we stop. When we can stop.

I swear, if you existed I'd divorce you.

Careers are funny things. They begin mysteriously and, just as mysteriously, they can end.

Every monster was a man first.

I think you remember everything ... you just can't bring it to mind all the time.

Knowing it--knowing it's true is one thing, but believing what you know... well, there's the tough part.

If Attila the Hun were alive today, he'd be a drama critic.

Death is release, if you've lived all right.

A playwright has a responsibility in his society not to aid it, or comfort it, but to comment and criticize it.

There is chaos behind the civility, of course.

To all of you who have made my being alive so wonderful, so exciting and so full, my thanks and all my love.

The world is a zoo

Art has an obligation to offend

A lot of people are confused by "hello." A lot of people are confused by a lot of things they shouldn't be confused by.

I'm not suggesting that the play is without fault; all of my plays are imperfect, I'm rather happy to say-it leaves me something to do.

American critics are like American universities. They both have dull and half-dead faculties.

In my mind, Martha, you are buried in cement right up to your neck. No ... right up to your nose ... that's much quieter.

You gotta have swine to show you where the truffles are.

Why we are here is an impenetrable question.

What I mean by an educated taste is someone who has the same tastes that I have.

It is a lazy public which promotes a slothful and irresponsible theater.

Musical beds is the faculty sport around here.

Martha: Oh, I like your anger. I think that's what I like about you most. Your anger.

To write a play one must be born a playwright. Otherwise, you're starting at a huge disadvantage.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

The only time I'll get good reviews is if I kill myself.

I am pleased and reassured by the fact that a lot of younger playwrights seem to pay me some attention and gain some nourishment from what I do.

Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf means who's afraid of the big bad wolf ... who's afraid of living life without false illusions.

Anything you put in a play
any speech
has got to do one of two things: either define character or push the action of the play along.

A play is fiction - and fiction is fact distilled into truth.

I said I was impressed, Martha. I'm beside myself with jealousy. What do you want me to do, throw up?

Your source material is the people you know, not those you don't know, but every character is an extension of the author's own personality.

The difference between critics and audiences is that one is a group of humans and one is not.

What people really want in the theater is fantasy involvement and not reality involvement.

Good writers define reality
Bad ones merely restate it.

You're in a straight line, buddy-boy, and it doesn't lead anywhere ... except maybe the grave.

I'm not responsible for the commercialization. The people who produce the plays are responsible for it.

I write to find out what I'm talking about.

The most profound indication of social malignancy ... no sense of humor. None of the monoliths could take a joke.

I'm infinitely more involved in the reality of the characters and their situation than I am in everyday life.

I find relatively little relationship between the work of art and the immediate critical response it gets.

Who tolerates, which is intolerable; who is kind, which is cruel; who understands, which is beyond comprehension ...

Few sensible authors are happy discussing the creative process
it is, after all, black magic.

School curricula that ignore the arts produce highly educated Barbarians

Remember one thing about democracy. We can have anything we want and at the same time, we always end up with exactly what we deserve.

Martha: Truth or illusion, George; you don't know the difference.
George: No, but we must carry on as though we did.
Martha: Amen.

There are only two things to write about: life and death.

I am sick of the disparity between things as they are and as they should be. I'm tired.I'm tired of the truth and I'm tired of lying about the truth.

I am not interested in living in a city where there isn't a production by Samuel Beckett running.

Progress is a set of assumptions.

If you have no wounds, how can you know if you're alive?

The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt that it didn't matter.

I think I was probably wondering, having looked at human beings for a long time, wondering if evolution ever took place. And I still have my doubts.

Dashed hopes and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested.

I have learned that neither kindness or cruelty by themselves, or independent of each other, create any effect beyond themselves.

When a play enters my consciousness, is already a fairly well-developed fetus. I don't put down a word until the play seems ready to be written.

When a critic sets himself up as an arbiter of morality, a judge of the matter and not the manner of a work, he is no longer a critic; he is a censor.

A writer is a controlled schizophrenic.

Art should never try to be popular.

Art is nowhere near as dangerous as it should be.

Sometimes it's necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.

All plays are social comment to one extent or another.

The thing that makes a creative person is to be creative and that is all there is to it.

I don't think I've ever written about me. I'm not a character in any of my plays, except that boy, that silent boy that turns up in Three Tall Women.

We must have that put in Latin - We do what we can - on

There are always going to be more actors than anybody can ever use.