black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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
I was just restless with being in school; so I went out to Los Angeles.
BETH HENLEY

Country Restless School
It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.
BETH HENLEY

Enlightening Kind Playwright
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
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
Somehow I got to be one of five or six actors that the directors would use as guinea pigs at this directing colloquium, where people pay to listen to and watch the directors direct.
BETH HENLEY

Director People Pigs
I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, really in suburbia, so my mother was in community theatre plays.
BETH HENLEY

Community Mother Play Theatre
The most glorious thing about working in the collaborative art is when you have somebody like Susan Kingsley or Kathy Bates who are better than your play.
BETH HENLEY

Art Glorious Play
I’m very into the first production of the show.
BETH HENLEY

Firsts Production Show
My first few plays took place in the South and even The Lucky Spot was in the thirties but in Louisiana.
BETH HENLEY

Louisiana Lucky Play
I did write a couple of original screenplays, but I’d rather write plays.
BETH HENLEY

Couple Play Writing
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
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
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

Done Inclination Play
Plays are so much more special if they’ve never ever had a production, but I think you can really work on a play and make it better with each production.
BETH HENLEY

Play Special Thinking
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

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?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Beth Henley Quotes