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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

I don’t like symbolism that hits you over the head. A symbol should not be a cymbal.
EDWARD ALBEE

Head Hit Symbol Yourself
If you have no wounds, how can you know if you’re alive?
EDWARD ALBEE

Alive Life Wound Yourself
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
A play is fiction and fiction is fact distilled into truth.
EDWARD ALBEE

Fact Fiction Play Truth
The act of creation, as you very well know, is a lonely and private matter and has nothing to do with the public area… the performance of the work one creates.
EDWARD ALBEE

Act Creation Lonely Oneself Performance Privacy
American critics are like American universities. They both have dull and half-dead faculties.
EDWARD ALBEE

Criticism Death Facility
Well, when you write about people of a certain age we are in a postsexual situation. If I write about younger people then I write sexually, because their drive is sexual. It depends upon the circumstances.
EDWARD ALBEE

Age Character Circumstance Myself Play Sexual Situation Young
Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf means who’s afraid of the big bad wolf, who’s afraid of living life without false illusions.
EDWARD ALBEE

Afraid Fake Illusion Life Live
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

Different Fade Greatness Interesting Natural Production Reality
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
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, I write to find out what I’m thinking about.
EDWARD ALBEE

Act Discover Myself Thinking Writing
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
There is chaos behind the civility, of course.
EDWARD ALBEE

Chaos Civilization
Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it.
EDWARD ALBEE

Bad Definition Goodness Reality Writing
It is a lazy public which promotes a slothful and irresponsible theater.
EDWARD ALBEE

Promote Public Responsibility Theatre

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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