Wallace Shawn Quotes

I never grew up thinking, 'One day I will play so and so' because I wasn't expecting to be an actor at all.

I'm a very lucky man. It's a beautiful thing for a writer, to see people allowing your words to enter their own unconscious and their souls.

'The Princess Bride' is by far the most popular film I've ever done. I don't think I'll ever top it.

I don't know about you, but I only have one life, and I don't want to spend it in a sewer of injustice.

You know, I haven't written as much as most other writers. Certainly maybe those who keep a more regular schedule accomplish more.

I never planned to be an actor. It turned out I could make a living doing it.

In my early 20s, I studied history and politics, and I really thought that perhaps I would devote my life to that.

Patriotism is considered to be an emotion a person ought to feel. But why? Why is it nobler to love your own country than to love someone else's?

As writers, we can't predict who might come along who might find our offerings valuable.

I have an enormous appetite to see life as I know it presented in front of my eyes.

And my singing, I don't think I could sing Wagner or opera, but I could probably carry a tune. I was in a musical once, but it was never performed.

I know that I am one and I've made a living as an actor and I enjoy being an actor, but when I'm not actually doing it, I forget that I do it.

You can go to a play that is enjoyable because it's funny, and then on the next night you can go to a play that's enjoyable because it's 'disturbing.'

In terms of number of movies, I've been in an extraordinary amount. If you count only the minutes I'm onscreen, it's not so long.

I have been vain since birth.

I do things, and other people laugh at them. I rarely know what the joke is supposed to be or why they're laughing.

Escape before it's too late.

I don't see that many plays, and for me, musicals are rarely pleasing.

I have been vain since birth. I expected other people to like what I did, although my vanity has definitely diminished over the years.

Even with my wife, I find sharing soup is hard.

My plays have been strange from the beginning, and they never got unstrange.

I spend most of my time thinking about things like laundry and buying stationery supplies.

The life of an actor can be very enviable.

I'm being mocked because I don't live up to a socially determined view of what other people think a person should look like.

Sleep: a poor substitute for caffeine!

Acting is an escape from the boring person that I am in real life.

It's obviously a characteristic of human beings that we like to feel superior to others, but our problem is we are not superior

I have more free time than a lot of individuals, so, instead of talking, I sometimes write.

There's nothing regular about my life at all, really. I don't keep a regular schedule and every day is different. It's all rather chaotic.

I was clever enough to know that John Donne was offering something that was awfully enjoyable. I just wasn't clever enough to actually enjoy it.

I don't have a television, and I'm just not too up on television.

In real life, every person is the leading man or woman. We don't think of ourselves as supporting or character actors.

Who says one instance of writing has anything in common with another instance?