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People often ask me how long it takes me to write a play, and I tell them ‘all of my life.’

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
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
Progress is a set of assumptions.
EDWARD ALBEE

Assumption One Liner Progress
It is a lazy public which promotes a slothful and irresponsible theater.
EDWARD ALBEE

Promote Public Responsibility Theatre
The function of art is to bring people into greater touch with reality, and yet our movie houses and family rooms are jammed with people after as much reality-removal as they can get.
EDWARD ALBEE

Function Greatness Movie Ourselves People Touch
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 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
If you have no wounds, how can you know if you’re alive?
EDWARD ALBEE

Alive Life Wound Yourself
A play is fiction and fiction is fact distilled into truth.
EDWARD ALBEE

Fact Fiction Play Truth
American critics are like American universities. They both have dull and half-dead faculties.
EDWARD ALBEE

Criticism Death Facility
I don’t like symbolism that hits you over the head. A symbol should not be a cymbal.
EDWARD ALBEE

Head Hit Symbol Yourself
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
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
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 write to find out what I’m talking about.
EDWARD ALBEE

Finding Myself Talk Writing

People often ask me how long it takes me to write a play, and I tell them ‘all of my life.’

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People often ask me how long it takes me to write a play, and I tell them ‘all of my life.’

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