Playwright Quotes

It is better to wear rags in honesty than brocade in dishonor.

Preach the blessings of our deeply incorporated civilization by the mouths of our eight-inch guns.

William Dean Howells

We are not masters of our own affections; our inclinations dailyalter: now we love pleasure, and anon we shall dote on business. Human frailty will have it so, and who can help it?

George Etherege

Art is something which lies in the slender margin between the real and the unreal.

Chikamatsu Monzaemon

The duty of a scientist is not to distort the manifestations of natural phenomena in the light of some more or less popular idea. His duty is to explain facts.

Émile Cammaerts

But from the hoop's bewitching round,
Her very shoe has power to wound.

As I am never better than when I am mad; then methinks I am a brave fellow; then I do wonders: but reason abuseth me, and there's the torment, there's the hell.

Well, every one for himself, and Providence for us all—as the elephant said when he danced among the chickens.

Writing is a solitary pursuit and I think you have to be partially at peace with yourself, but it's the other part that's usually producing the stuff worth reading.

Craig Johnson (author)

Do not despair. Remember there is no triangle, however obtuse, but the circumference of some circle passes through its wretched vertices.

The press and politicians. A delicate relationship. Too close, and danger ensues. Too far apart and democracy itself cannot function without the essential exchange of information. Creative leaks, a discreet lunch, interchange in the Lobby, the art of the unattributable telephone call, late at night.

You gone have to pass off that baton, little man. You in a relay race, albeit the fastest runner we done ever seen't. But you 'bout to burn out, superstar. You gone need to pass off that baton.

[...] your own are burning and your memories and you don't want to leave them. Everything will burn to the end, you suffer, but nobody is punishing you, they are just setting your soul free. Don't be afraid because while you fear death they will rend your soul like demons. Only calm down and you will see the angels who are setting you free and then you will be free.

Dimitris Lyacos

At first it's pretty cool: the limitless fruit of knowledge hanging low in your path. Then you realize it's the only thing to eat around here.

She's adorned
Amply that in her husband's eye looks lovely,—
The truest mirror that an honest wife
Can see her beauty in.

I've been living in Portland for five months and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I probably won't really know for years because that's how it works right? You don't really develop feelings about a place till you've left it. It's like a girl or a dog.

Imagine, if you can, what the rest of the evening was like. How they crouched by the fire which blazed and leaped and made much of itself in the little grate. How they removed the covers of the dishes, and found rich, hot savory soup, which was a meal in itself, and sandwiches and toast and muffins enough for both of them.

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Good friends in hard times and hard friends in good times.

You see I learnt at an early age what it was to be angry - angry and helpless. And I can never forget it. I knew more about - love... betrayal... and death, when I was ten years old than you will probably ever know in your life.

Our planet
is poorly equipped
for delight.
One must snatch
gladness
from the days that are.
In this life
it's not difficult to die.
To make life
is more difficult by far.

Vladimir Mayakovsky

It is my father. He is arriving again for the night. He comes through the jungle to find me. He never tires of his journey.

Adrienne Kennedy

My husband was in the war of the Crimea. It is terrible the hardships he went through‚ to be two months without going into a house‚ under the snow in trenches. And no food to get‚ maybe a biscuit in the day. And there was enough food there‚ he said‚ to feed all Ireland; but bad management‚ they could not get it.

Augusta, Lady Gregory

Radio listeners are voyeurs: lurking, invisible, eavesdropping.

Paul Fleischman

I know that back in the twenties everyone who saw it judged John Barrymore's Hamlet to be unforgettable. Great though it was, I found his Richard III even more impressive. Barrymore's sinister, half-mad hunchback became incandescent as he gleefully anticipated his conquest of the Lady Anne. The genius of the actor contrived a slight but inspired alteration of Shakespeare's: 'Was ever woman in this humour wooed? Was ever woman in this humour won?' The change to 'Never was woman in this manner wooed; never was woman in this manner won' heightened the deviltry in Richard's gloating.

The spring in Boston is like being in love: bad days slip in among the good ones, and the whole world is at a standstill, then the sun shines, the tears dry up, and we forget that yesterday was stormy.

Louise Closser Hale