Edward Albee Quotes

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

George, who is out somewhere there in the dark, who is good to me - whom I revile, who can keep learning the games we play as quickly as I can change them. Who can make me happy and I do not wish to be happy. And yes, I do wish to be happy. George and Martha: Sad, sad, sad. Whom I will not forgive for having come to rest; for having seen me and having said: “Yes, this will do”. Who has made the hideous, the hurting, the insulting mistake of loving… me, and must be punished for it. George and Martha… Sad, sad, sad.

~ Edward Albee

Martha: Oh, I like your anger. I think that's what I like about you most. Your anger.

~ Edward Albee

... what I wanted to get at is the value difference between pornographic playing cards when you're a kid, and pornographic playing cards when you're older. It's that when you're a kid you use the cards as a substitute for a real experience, and when you're older you use real experience as a substitute for the fantasy.

~ Edward Albee

In my mind, Martha, you are buried in cement right up to your neck. No… right up to your nose… that’s much quieter.

~ Edward Albee

Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it. A good writer turns fact into truth; a bad writer will, more often than not, accomplish the opposite.

~ Edward Albee

To all of you who have made my being alive so wonderful, so exciting and so full, my thanks and all my love.

~ Edward Albee

I am not interested in living in a city where there isn't a production by Samuel Beckett running.

~ Edward Albee

It's one of those things a person has to do, sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out of his way to come back a short distance correctly.

~ Edward Albee

If you spend a hundred bucks, or more, to go to the theatre, something should happen to you. Maybe somebody should be asking you some questions about your values, or about the way you think about things. Maybe you should come out of the theatre, something having happened to you. Maybe you should be changing, or thinking about changing. But if you just go there, and the only thing you worry about is where you left the damn car, then you wasted a hundred bucks.

~ Edward Albee

If you spend a hundred bucks, or more, to go to the theatre, something should happen to you. Maybe somebody should be asking you some questions about your values, or about the way you think about things. Maybe you should come out of the theatre, something haven happened to you. Maybe you should be changing, or thinking about changing. But if you just go there, and the only thing you worry about is where you left the damn car, then you wasted a hundred bucks.

~ Edward Albee

Knowing it--knowing it's true is one thing, but believing what you know... well, there's the tough part.

~ Edward Albee

I said I was impressed, Martha. I'm beside myself with jealousy. What do you want me to do, throw up?

~ Edward Albee

I have a fine sense of the ridiculous, but no sense of humor.

~ Edward Albee

A play is fiction - and fiction is fact distilled into truth.

~ Edward Albee