Quote

[When you write a play] you walk into a forest without a knife, without a compass. But . . . if you have a sense of geography, you find that you're clearing a path and getting to the right place.

Neil Simon

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Neil Simon
Age: 91 †
Born: 1927
Born: July 4
Died: 2018
Died: August 26
Entrepreneur
Film Producer
Librettist
Lyricist
Playwright
Screenwriter
New York City
New York
Marvin Neil Simon
Writing
Getting
Knife
Write
Compass
Sense
Knives
Place
Forest
Find
Forests
Without
Walk
Play
Walks
Clearing
Right
Path
Geography

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The first book was my first attempt at writing full-length prose.
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It looks different when you're sober I thought I had twice as much furniture.
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There's no such thing as a sure thing. That's why they call it gambling.
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Gee, what a terrific party. Later on we'll get some fluid and embalm each other.
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Talent is the gift plus the passion - a desire to succeed so intense that no force on earth can stop it.
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A lot of your personality is formed before you're 12, obviously, but only a few of my plays use characters from my childhood. The more mature plays are affected only by my adult experiences.
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I don't like dating or just living with a woman. I like to create a relationship, a marriage. And almost all of my marriages have involved children, so I'm really a family man as well.
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Writers feel like a middleman, standing with pen in hand over the page. A force greater than me stands above telling me what to write. That may sound romantic, but that's how it feels.
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I much prefer writing an original movie with the screen in mind to transferring a play to the screen.
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I go to see plays all the time, and whenever I see Chekhov, I'm amazed at how this Russian play strikes home to me living 100 years later in New York City. I'm drawn to him because of his way with characters and their relationships with each other.
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Rewriting is when writing really gets to be fun. . . . In baseball you only get three swings and you're out. In rewriting, you get almost as many swings as you want and you know, sooner or later, you'll hit the ball.
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Once you've opened yourself up, it's best to go all the way.
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He's too nervous to kill himself. He wears his seat belt in a drive-in movie.
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If you can go through life without experiencing pain you probably haven't been born yet.
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Evan Handler's new book is simply wonderful. He pulls you inside his life, and you come out his very close friend.
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I was constantly being dragged out of movies for laughing too loud.
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I understand. You work very hard two days a week and you need a five-day weekend. That's normal.
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All humor is based on hostility - that's why World War Two was funny.
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Sports is the only entertainment where, no matter how many times you go back, you never know the ending.
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