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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

Few sensible authors are happy discussing the creative process–it is, after all, black magic.
EDWARD ALBEE

Author Black Creativity Discussion Magic Process
All serious art is being destroyed by commerce. Most people don’t want art to be disturbing. They want it to be escapist. I don’t think art should be escapist. That’s a waste of time.
EDWARD ALBEE

Art Commerce Destroy Disturbance Escape People Serious Wasted Time
I find relatively little relationship between the work of art and the immediate critical response it gets.
EDWARD ALBEE

Art Criticism Finding Myself Relative Response Work
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

Action Character Live Lower Moments Yourself
Every monster was a man first.
EDWARD ALBEE

Man Monster One Liner
It always seems to me better to slough off the answer to a question that I consider to be a terrible invasion of privacy – the kind of privacy that a writer must keep for himself.
EDWARD ALBEE

Answer Better Himself Invasion Privacy Question Terrible Writing
I don’t feel that catharsis in a play necessarily takes place during the course of a play. Often it should take place afterward.
EDWARD ALBEE

Feeling Myself Necessary Place Play
Anything you put in a play – any speech – has got to do one of two things: either define character or push the action of the play along.
EDWARD ALBEE

Action Definition Oneself Play
A writer is a controlled schizophrenic.
EDWARD ALBEE

Control Perspective Writing
When a critic sets himself up as an arbiter of morality, a judge of the matter and not the manner of a work, he is no longer a critic; he is a censor.
EDWARD ALBEE

Criticism Himself Judge Moral
The arts are the only things that separate us from the other animals. The arts are not decorative. They are essential to our comprehension of consciousness and ourselves.
EDWARD ALBEE

Animal Art Conscious Decorative Essential Ourselves Separate
School curriculum that ignore the arts produce highly educated Barbarians.
EDWARD ALBEE

Education Ignorance Production School
The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt that it didn’t matter.
EDWARD ALBEE

Act Feeling Optimism Trouble Writing Yourself
Art should never try to be popular.
EDWARD ALBEE

Art One Liner Popular
There are always going to be more actors than anybody can ever use.
EDWARD ALBEE

Actor Population
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

Conscious Development Myself Play Writing

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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