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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
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
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
Remember one thing about democracy. We can have anything we want and at the same time, we always end up with exactly what we deserve.
EDWARD ALBEE

Democracy Deserve Oneself Politics Time
Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it.
EDWARD ALBEE

Bad Definition Goodness Reality Writing
That’s the happiest moment. When it’s all done. When we stop. When we can stop.
EDWARD ALBEE

Happiness Moments Stop
I suppose, writing a play is finding out what the play is.
EDWARD ALBEE

Finding Play Writing
There is chaos behind the civility, of course.
EDWARD ALBEE

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

Head Hit Symbol Yourself
Art has an obligation to offend.
EDWARD ALBEE

Art Obligation Offend One Liner
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
If you have no wounds, how can you know if you’re alive?
EDWARD ALBEE

Alive Life Wound 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
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
I created myself, and I’ll attack anybody I feel like.
EDWARD ALBEE

Attack Creation Feeling Myself
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
I am sick of the disparity between things as they are and as they should be. I’m tired.I’m tired of the truth and I’m tired of lying about the truth.
EDWARD ALBEE

Lying Myself Sick Tired Truth
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
Death is release, if you’ve lived all right.
EDWARD ALBEE

Death Live Right 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
There are always going to be more actors than anybody can ever use.
EDWARD ALBEE

Actor Population
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
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
Dashed hopes and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested.
EDWARD ALBEE

Best Goodness Hope Intention
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

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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