Quote

Read the great stuff, but read the stuff that isn't so great, too. Great stuff is very discouraging. If you read only Beckett and Chekhov, you'll go away and only deliver telegrams for Western Union.

Edward Albee

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Edward Albee
Age: 88 †
Born: 1928
Born: March 12
Died: 2016
Died: September 16
Author
Playwright
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Theatrical Director
University Teacher
Writer
Washington
District of Columbia
Edward Franklin Albee III
Edward Albee
Stuff
Beckett
Away
Chekhov
Great
Discouraging
Deliver
Union
Unions
Western
Read
Telegrams

More quotes by Edward Albee

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Being different is ... interesting there's nothing implicitly inferior or superior about it. Great difference, of course, produces natural caution and if the differences are too extreme ... well, then, reality tends to fade away.
Edward Albee
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Some things that make sense to me don't make the same degree of sense to other people.
Edward Albee
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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?
Edward Albee
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True, I don't begin with an idea for a play - a thesis, in other words, to construct the play around. But I know a good deal about the nature of the characters. I know a great deal about their environment. And I more or less know what is going to happen in the play.
Edward Albee
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You want to dance with me, angel tits?
Edward Albee
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To a certain extent I imagine a play is completely finished in my mind - in my case, at any rate - without my knowing it, before I sit down to write.
Edward Albee
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That's the happiest moment. When it's all done. When we stop. When we can stop.
Edward Albee
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I find that when my plays are going well, they seem to resemble pieces of music. But if I had to go into specifics about it, I wouldn't be able to. It's merely something that I feel.
Edward Albee
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I think you remember everything ... you just can't bring it to mind all the time.
Edward Albee
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Dashed hopes and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested.
Edward Albee
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You gotta have swine to show you where the truffles are.
Edward Albee
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Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.
Edward Albee
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I write to find out what I'm talking about.
Edward Albee
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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.
Edward Albee
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When you're dealing with a symbol in a realistic play, it is also a realistic fact. You must expect the audience's mind to work on both levels, symbolically and realistically. But we're trained so much in pure, realistic theater that it's difficult for us to handle things on two levels at the same time.
Edward Albee
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Influence is a matter of selection - both acceptance and rejection.
Edward Albee
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I suppose if you simplify things, it's going to make it easier to understand.
Edward Albee
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When people don't like the way a play ends, they're likely to blame the play.
Edward Albee
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The most profound indication of social malignancy ... no sense of humor. None of the monoliths could take a joke.
Edward Albee
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Some writers' view of things depends upon the success of the final result. I'd rather stand or fall on my own concepts. But there is a fine line to be drawn between pointing up something or distorting it.
Edward Albee