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That was always my inclination, to start on a new play before the other one gets done, because at least you’ll have something to go back to if that play gets trashed.

Beth Henley

The impetus behind going to graduate school was a year after graduating from college spent in Dallas working at the dog food factory and Bank America and not having met success in my chosen field, which at that point was being an actress.
BETH HENLEY

College Dog School
I’m very into the first production of the show.
BETH HENLEY

Firsts Production Show
The next thing I wrote was in a writing class at night school. It was about a poor woman who worked at a dime store and who was all alone for Christmas in Laurel, Mississippi.
BETH HENLEY

Christmas School Writing
And all writing is creating or spinning dreams for other people so they won’t have to bother doing it themselves.
BETH HENLEY

Creating Dream Writing
That’s what I like about [smoking] . . . taking a drag off of death, Mmm! Gives me a sense of controlling my own destiny. What power! What exhilaration! Want a drag?
BETH HENLEY

Destiny Giving Smoking
I just loved being divorced from my own wretchedness.
BETH HENLEY

Divorced Own Wretchedness
But here’s the thing: what you do as a screenwriter is you sell your copyright. As a novelist, as a poet, as a playwright, you maintain your copyright.
BETH HENLEY

Copyright Novelists Poets
It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.
BETH HENLEY

Enlightening Kind Playwright
Part of that is that New York has proved to be too much fun for me to live and work; I love New York so much.
BETH HENLEY

Country Live Work
I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, really in suburbia, so my mother was in community theatre plays.
BETH HENLEY

Community Mother Play Theatre
There are probably brilliant people, geniuses, alive today who don’t even know how to say, “Hello, how do you do?” because their minds are absorbed with electronic images.
BETH HENLEY

Live Mind People Today
I tried to start a theatre in LA and failed miserably, but I was probably not meant to raise money.
BETH HENLEY

Money Raise Theatre
I love to work, although sometimes I can spend whole days doing nothing more than picking the lint off the carpet and talking to my mother on the phone.
BETH HENLEY

Mother Phones Talking
But when I got to SMU and decided to take a playwriting class, I said this isn’t a bad idea. IfI write characters, they could be as dumb as me, and I don’t have to be very smart.
BETH HENLEY

Character Smart Writing
It’s really interesting that whenever you do something that is so out of character, like having an emotional outburst, that you don’t get in trouble.
BETH HENLEY

Character Emotional Interesting
I love writing for the screen.
BETH HENLEY

Love Screens Writing

That was always my inclination, to start on a new play before the other one gets done, because at least you’ll have something to go back to if that play gets trashed.

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That was always my inclination, to start on a new play before the other one gets done, because at least you’ll have something to go back to if that play gets trashed.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Beth Henley Quotes