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There is chaos behind the civility, of course.

Edward Albee

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

Blame End People Play Way
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
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 suppose, writing a play is finding out what the play is.
EDWARD ALBEE

Finding Play Writing
Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it.
EDWARD ALBEE

Bad Definition Goodness Reality Writing
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
If you’re willing to fail interestingly, you tend to succeed interestingly.
EDWARD ALBEE

Failure Inspirational Success Willing Yourself
I created myself, and I’ll attack anybody I feel like.
EDWARD ALBEE

Attack Creation Feeling Myself
That’s the happiest moment. When it’s all done. When we stop. When we can stop.
EDWARD ALBEE

Happiness Moments Stop
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
Influence is a matter of selection – both acceptance and rejection.
EDWARD ALBEE

Acceptance Influence Rejection Religion Selection
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
Art has an obligation to offend.
EDWARD ALBEE

Art Obligation Offend One Liner
A writer is a controlled schizophrenic.
EDWARD ALBEE

Control Perspective Writing
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
It is a lazy public which promotes a slothful and irresponsible theater.
EDWARD ALBEE

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

Criticism Death Facility
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
When a critic sets himself up as an arbiter of morality, a judge of the matter and not the manner of a work, he is no longer a critic; he is a censor.
EDWARD ALBEE

Criticism Himself Judge Moral
There are always going to be more actors than anybody can ever use.
EDWARD ALBEE

Actor Population
I have been both overpraised and under praised. I assume by the time I finish writing — and I plan to go on writing until I’m 90 or gaga it will all equal itself out.
EDWARD ALBEE

Equality Myself Praise Time Writing

There is chaos behind the civility, of course.

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There is chaos behind the civility, of course.

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