black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Influence is a matter of selection – both acceptance and rejection.

Edward Albee

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

Blame End People Play Way
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
What I mean by an educated taste is someone who has the same tastes that I have.
EDWARD ALBEE

Education Myself Preference Taste
That’s the happiest moment. When it’s all done. When we stop. When we can stop.
EDWARD ALBEE

Happiness Moments Stop
Death is release, if you’ve lived all right.
EDWARD ALBEE

Death Live Right Yourself
I think I was probably wondering, having looked at human beings for a long time, wondering if evolution ever took place. And I still have my doubts.
EDWARD ALBEE

Doubt Evolution Human Myself Place Thinking Time Wonder
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
The only time I’ll get good reviews is if I kill myself.
EDWARD ALBEE

Goodness Kill Myself Review Time
Art has an obligation to offend.
EDWARD ALBEE

Art Obligation Offend One Liner
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
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
A play is fiction and fiction is fact distilled into truth.
EDWARD ALBEE

Fact Fiction Play Truth
The characters’ lives have gone on before the moment you chose to have the action of the play begin. And their lives are going to go on after you have lowered the final curtain on the play, unless you’ve killed them off.
EDWARD ALBEE

Action Character Live Lower Moments Yourself
There is chaos behind the civility, of course.
EDWARD ALBEE

Chaos Civilization
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
There are always going to be more actors than anybody can ever use.
EDWARD ALBEE

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

Best Goodness Hope Intention
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
School curriculum that ignore the arts produce highly educated Barbarians.
EDWARD ALBEE

Education Ignorance Production School
The responsibility of the writer is to be a sort of demonic social critic — to present the world and people in it as he sees it and say, “Do you like it? If you don’t like it, change it.
EDWARD ALBEE

Change Criticism Responsibility Social 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
Every monster was a man first.
EDWARD ALBEE

Man Monster One Liner
I suppose, writing a play is finding out what the play is.
EDWARD ALBEE

Finding Play Writing

Influence is a matter of selection – both acceptance and rejection.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Influence is a matter of selection – both acceptance and rejection.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Edward Albee Quotes