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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

American critics are like American universities. They both have dull and half-dead faculties.
EDWARD ALBEE

Criticism Death Facility
I have learned that neither kindness or cruelty by themselves, or independent of each other, create any effect beyond themselves.
EDWARD ALBEE

Beyond Creation Cruelty Effect Independent Kindness Learning Myself
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
A play is fiction and fiction is fact distilled into truth.
EDWARD ALBEE

Fact Fiction Play Truth
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
I am pleased and reassured by the fact that a lot of younger playwrights seem to pay me some attention and gain some nourishment from what I do.
EDWARD ALBEE

Attention Fact Myself Nourishment Pay Play Please Reassurance Young
Dashed hopes and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested.
EDWARD ALBEE

Best Goodness Hope Intention
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
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
A playwright has a responsibility in his society not to aid it, or comfort it, but to comment and criticize it.
EDWARD ALBEE

Comfortable Criticism Himself Play Responsibility Society
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
I don’t like symbolism that hits you over the head. A symbol should not be a cymbal.
EDWARD ALBEE

Head Hit Symbol Yourself
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
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
Very few people who met my adoptive mother in the last 20 years of her life could abide her, while many people who have seen my play find her fascinating. Heavens, what have I done?!
EDWARD ALBEE

Adoption Fascinate Mom Myself People Play
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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