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I find relatively little relationship between the work of art and the immediate critical response it gets.

Edward Albee

I write to find out what I’m talking about.
EDWARD ALBEE

Finding Myself Talk Writing
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
A lot interests me – but nothing surprises me particularly.
EDWARD ALBEE

Interest Myself Surprise
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
School curriculum that ignore the arts produce highly educated Barbarians.
EDWARD ALBEE

Education Ignorance Production School
First, I’ll kill the dog with kindness, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll just kill him.
EDWARD ALBEE

Choice Dog Kill Kindness Method Myself
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
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
It is a lazy public which promotes a slothful and irresponsible theater.
EDWARD ALBEE

Promote Public Responsibility Theatre
Every monster was a man first.
EDWARD ALBEE

Man Monster One Liner
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
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
In a democracy you cannot stop public access to that art that will most misinform the people. You cannot stop people from being misinformed. But what you can do is to educate the people to the point that they will throw the rascals out.
EDWARD ALBEE

Access Democracy Information People Point Public Stop Yourself
You’re alive only once, as far as we know, and what could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn’t lived it?
EDWARD ALBEE

Alive End Life Live Realization Worst Yourself
Progress is a set of assumptions.
EDWARD ALBEE

Assumption One Liner Progress
Musical beds is the faculty sport around here.
EDWARD ALBEE

Bed Music Sports
A play is fiction and fiction is fact distilled into truth.
EDWARD ALBEE

Fact Fiction Play Truth
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
That’s the happiest moment. When it’s all done. When we stop. When we can stop.
EDWARD ALBEE

Happiness Moments Stop
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
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
One has always got to be terribly careful, since the theater is made up of a whole bunch of prima donnas, not to let the distortions occur.
EDWARD ALBEE

Careful Prevent Terrible Theatre
What people really want in the theater is fantasy involvement and not reality involvement.
EDWARD ALBEE

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

Head Hit Symbol Yourself
The only time I’ll get good reviews is if I kill myself.
EDWARD ALBEE

Goodness Kill Myself Review Time
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 find relatively little relationship between the work of art and the immediate critical response it gets.

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I find relatively little relationship between the work of art and the immediate critical response it gets.

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