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Being different is interesting; there’s nothing implicitly inferior or superior about it. Great difference, of course, produces natural caution; and if the differences are too extreme well, then, reality tends to fade away.

Edward Albee

Death is release, if you’ve lived all right.
EDWARD ALBEE

Death Live Right Yourself
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

Function Greatness Movie Ourselves People Touch
Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.
EDWARD ALBEE

Himself Play Stage
Writing has got to be an act of discovery, I write to find out what I’m thinking about.
EDWARD ALBEE

Act Discover Myself Thinking Writing
American critics are like American universities. They both have dull and half-dead faculties.
EDWARD ALBEE

Criticism Death Facility
The most profound indication of social malignancy no sense of humor. None of the monoliths could take a joke.
EDWARD ALBEE

Humor Joke Social
Progress is a set of assumptions.
EDWARD ALBEE

Assumption One Liner Progress
Sometimes it’s necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.
EDWARD ALBEE

Correct Distance Necessary Order Time Way
Writing has got to be an act of discovery. Finding out things about what one is writing about.
EDWARD ALBEE

Act Discovery Finding Oneself Writing
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
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

Change Criticism Responsibility Social Yourself
One must let the play happen to one; one must let the mind loose to respond as it will, to receive impressions, to sense rather than know, to gather rather than immediately understand.
EDWARD ALBEE

Lose Mindset Oneself Play Respond Understand
There is chaos behind the civility, of course.
EDWARD ALBEE

Chaos Civilization
Influence is a matter of selection – both acceptance and rejection.
EDWARD ALBEE

Acceptance Influence Rejection Religion Selection
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
What people really want in the theater is fantasy involvement and not reality involvement.
EDWARD ALBEE

Fantasy Involvement People Reality Theatre
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
I am not interested in living in a city where there isn’t a production by Samuel Beckett running.
EDWARD ALBEE

Interest Live Myself Production Run
Maybe it’s a little more pertinent now since the whole concept of evolution is being questioned by the know-nothing Republican right. Yes, maybe the play’s a little more pertinent now.
EDWARD ALBEE

Concept Evolution Play Question
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

Audience Criticism Encouragement End Theatre Yourself
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

Carry Difference Illusion Truth Yourself
That’s the happiest moment. When it’s all done. When we stop. When we can stop.
EDWARD ALBEE

Happiness Moments Stop
I think you remember everything, you just can’t bring it to mind all the time.
EDWARD ALBEE

Mindset Myself Remember Thinking Time Yourself
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

Old People Snap Talk Way Yourself
Art should never try to be popular.
EDWARD ALBEE

Art One Liner Popular
A play is fiction and fiction is fact distilled into truth.
EDWARD ALBEE

Fact Fiction Play Truth
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

Confusion Education People

Being different is interesting; there’s nothing implicitly inferior or superior about it. Great difference, of course, produces natural caution; and if the differences are too extreme well, then, reality tends to fade away.

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Being different is interesting; there’s nothing implicitly inferior or superior about it. Great difference, of course, produces natural caution; and if the differences are too extreme well, then, reality tends to fade away.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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