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I grew up. I began to think the United States had some problems that really required the help of artistic people to solve. And I gave myself permission to be a writer instead of a civil servant.

Wallace Shawn

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Wallace Shawn
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: November 12
Actor
Author
Character Actor
Film Actor
Playwright
Screenwriter
Television Actor
Voice Actor
Writer
New York City
New York
Wallace Michael Shawn
Wally Shawn
People
Help
Artistic
United
Began
Helping
Solve
Problem
Gave
States
Writer
Permission
Really
Problems
Required
Think
Instead
Servant
Thinking
Grew
Civil

More quotes by Wallace Shawn

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When I was first starting to write plays, I quite literally had never heard of the idea of studying playwriting. I wouldn't have studied it even if I had heard of it.
Wallace Shawn
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'The Princess Bride' is by far the most popular film I've ever done. I don't think I'll ever top it.
Wallace Shawn
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I think the whole system of education would change if I were in charge and had the ability to make changes. I don't think I would keep Princeton exactly being Princeton.
Wallace Shawn
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Sleep: a poor substitute for caffeine!
Wallace Shawn
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I probably have a higher opinion of my writing than the average person, at least when I'm in a good mood, but I don't really think of my plays as only being relevant to a particular month or year.
Wallace Shawn
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As writers, we can't predict who might come along who might find our offerings valuable.
Wallace Shawn
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I think I'm trying to write truthfully about life, and naturalism, or the way people normally talk in movies, is a convention. It's not the way people talk in life at all.
Wallace Shawn
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Even with my wife, I find sharing soup is hard.
Wallace Shawn
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I was making my living from a joke about my appearance that I didn't understand, and in a way still don't, because when I look in a mirror it doesn't seem funny to me.
Wallace Shawn
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In an amusement park, you can go on a roller coaster that carries you up and down, or you can go on another kind of ride that whirls you around in a circle. Similarly, there are different sorts of entertaining experiences in the theater.
Wallace Shawn
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Acting is trying to be absolutely truthful to get audiences to believe that you are a dean, when, actually, not only are you not the dean, but if you walked into the building they'd probably throw you out. That's very hard.
Wallace Shawn
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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.
Wallace Shawn
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In real life, every person is the leading man or woman. We don't think of ourselves as supporting or character actors.
Wallace Shawn
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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.
Wallace Shawn
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Interestingly, the actress who, in her own persona, may be gentle, shy, and socially awkward, someone whose hand trembles when pouring a cup of tea for a visiting friend, can convincingly portray an elegant, cruel aristocrat tossing off malicious epigrams in an eighteenth-century chocolate house.
Wallace Shawn
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Acting is an escape from the boring person that I am in real life.
Wallace Shawn
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Escape before it’s too late.
Wallace Shawn
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My personal life is lived as 'me,' but my professional life is lived as other people. In other words, when I go to the office, I lie down, dream, and become 'someone else.' That's my job.
Wallace Shawn
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A play presents a self-enclosed little world for the audience to examine. It's an opportunity to look objectively at a group of people, to assess them, to react to them, and to measure oneself against them, to ask 'Am I like that?'
Wallace Shawn
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I do things, and other people laugh at them. I rarely know what the joke is supposed to be or why they're laughing.
Wallace Shawn