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There are only two things to write about: life and death.

Edward Albee

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
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
When people don’t like the way a play ends, they’re likely to blame the play.
EDWARD ALBEE

Blame End People Play Way
There are only two things to write about: life and death.
EDWARD ALBEE

Death Life Poet Writing
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
As a playwright, I imagine that in one fashion or another I’ve been influenced by every single play I’ve ever experienced.
EDWARD ALBEE

Experience Fashion Imagination Myself Play
Sincerity doesn’t mean anything. A person can be sincere and be more destructive than a person who is insincere.
EDWARD ALBEE

Destruction Person Sincere
What people really want in the theater is fantasy involvement and not reality involvement.
EDWARD ALBEE

Fantasy Involvement People Reality Theatre
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
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
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
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
Your source material is the people you know, not those you don’t know, but every character is an extension of the author’s own personality.
EDWARD ALBEE

Author Character Extension Material People Personality Source 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Influence is a matter of selection – both acceptance and rejection.
EDWARD ALBEE

Acceptance Influence Rejection Religion Selection
If you have no wounds, how can you know if you’re alive?
EDWARD ALBEE

Alive Life Wound Yourself
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
Martha: Oh, I like your anger. I think that’s what I like about you most. Your anger.
EDWARD ALBEE

Angry Myself Thinking Yourself
Art should never try to be popular.
EDWARD ALBEE

Art One Liner Popular
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
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 are only two things to write about: life and death.

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There are only two things to write about: life and death.

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