I am sick of the disparity between things as they are and as they should be. I’m tired.I’m tired of the truth and I’m tired of lying about the truth.
EDWARD ALBEEMartha: Truth or illusion, George; you don’t know the difference. George: No, but we must carry on as though we did. Martha: Amen.
More Edward Albee Quotes
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I suppose, writing a play is finding out what the play is.
EDWARD ALBEE -
People often ask me how long it takes me to write a play, and I tell them ‘all of my life.’
EDWARD ALBEE -
First, I’ll kill the dog with kindness, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll just kill him.
EDWARD ALBEE -
Martha: Truth or illusion, George; you don’t know the difference. George: No, but we must carry on as though we did. Martha: Amen.
EDWARD ALBEE -
What people really want in the theater is fantasy involvement and not reality involvement.
EDWARD ALBEE -
I am not interested in living in a city where there isn’t a production by Samuel Beckett running.
EDWARD ALBEE -
The function of art is to bring people into greater touch with reality, and yet our movie houses and family rooms are jammed with people after as much reality-removal as they can get.
EDWARD ALBEE -
Progress is a set of assumptions.
EDWARD ALBEE -
Audiences and, to a large extent, critics who want less from theater than it is possible for it to give. If everybody’s encouraged to want less, you’ll end up with less.
EDWARD ALBEE -
Musical beds is the faculty sport around here.
EDWARD ALBEE -
The responsibility of the writer is to be a sort of demonic social critic — to present the world and people in it as he sees it and say, “Do you like it? If you don’t like it, change it.
EDWARD ALBEE -
Why we are here is an impenetrable question.
EDWARD ALBEE -
When you get old, you can’t talk to people because people snap at you…. That’s why you become deaf, so you won’t be able to hear people talking to you that way.
EDWARD ALBEE -
What I mean by an educated taste is someone who has the same tastes that I have.
EDWARD ALBEE -
When people don’t like the way a play ends, they’re likely to blame the play.
EDWARD ALBEE -
Dashed hopes and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested.
EDWARD ALBEE -
If you have no wounds, how can you know if you’re alive?
EDWARD ALBEE -
Influence is a matter of selection – both acceptance and rejection.
EDWARD ALBEE -
Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.
EDWARD ALBEE -
The characters’ lives have gone on before the moment you chose to have the action of the play begin. And their lives are going to go on after you have lowered the final curtain on the play, unless you’ve killed them off.
EDWARD ALBEE -
Few sensible authors are happy discussing the creative process–it is, after all, black magic.
EDWARD ALBEE -
A lot of people are confused by “hello.” A lot of people are confused by a lot of things they shouldn’t be confused by.
EDWARD ALBEE -
Sometimes it’s necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.
EDWARD ALBEE -
Death is release, if you’ve lived all right.
EDWARD ALBEE -
Your source material is the people you know, not those you don’t know, but every character is an extension of the author’s own personality.
EDWARD ALBEE -
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