Plays Quotes

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.

~ Oscar Wilde

It is rare for people to be asked the question which puts them squarely in front of themselves

~ Arthur Miller

Never to be squandered.....the miracle of another human being.

~ Craig Lucas

Poetry, plays, novels, music, they are the cry of the human spirit trying to understand itself and make sense of our world.

~ L.m. Elliott

Under the greenwood tree,Who loves to lie with meAnd tune his merry note,Unto the sweet bird's throat;Come hither, come hither, come hither.Here shall he seeNo enemyBut winter and rough weather.

~ William Shakespeare

It’s easier for me to make sense of it that way than it is for me to face the other way—reality. And yet, those evil spirits that were unleashed—be they fake entities from a stupid carnival ride, or cruel malevolencies from dark spiritual chasms of our universe—have stayed with me all these years

~ Tim Cummings

Listen, we’ll come visit you. Okay? I’ll dress up as William Shakespeare, Lucent as Emily Dickinson, and beautiful ‘Ray’ as someone dashing and manly like Jules Verne or Ernest Hemingway...and we’ll write on your white-room walls. We’ll write you out of your supposed insanity. I love you, Micky Affias.-James (from Descendants of the Eminent)

~ Tim Cummings

This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;And to do that well craves a kind of wit:He must observe their mood on whom he jests,The quality of persons, and the time,And, like the haggard, check at every featherThat comes before his eye. This is a practiseAs full of labour as a wise man's artFor folly that he wisely shows is fit;But wise men, folly-fall'n, quite taint their wit.

~ William Shakespeare

I leave the kitchen table to bathe, and to dress for church. If only my closet held on its shelves an array of faces I could wear rather than dresses, I would know which face to put on today. As for the dresses, I haven't a clue.

~ Tim Cummings

Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.

~ Tom Stoppard

This is what it is to love an artist: The moon is always rising above your house. The houses of your neighbors look dull and lacking in moonlight. But he is always going away from you. Inside his head there is always something more beautiful.

~ Sarah Ruhl

Theatres are curious places, magician's trick-boxes where the golden memories of dramtic triumphs linger like nostalgic ghosts, and where the unexplainable, the fantastic, the tragic, the comic and the absurd are routine occurences on and off the stage. Murders, mayhem, politcal intrigue, lucrative business, secret assignations, and of course, dinner.

~ E.a. Bucchianeri

GUIL: It [Hamlet's madness] really boils down to symptoms. Pregnant replies, mystic allusions, mistaken identities, arguing his father is his mother, that sort of thing; intimations of suicide, forgoing of exercise, loss of mirth, hints of claustrophobia not to say delusions of imprisonment; invocations of camels, chameleons, capons, whales, weasels, hawks, handsaws -- riddles, quibbles and evasions; amnesia, paranoia, myopia; day-dreaming, hallucinations; stabbing his elders, abusing his parents, insulting his lover, and appearing hatless in public -- knock-kneed, droop-stockinged and sighing like a love-sick schoolboy, which at his age is coming on a bit strong.ROS: And talking to himself.GUIL: And talking to himself.

~ Tom Stoppard

Even the world’s greatest actor cannot fake an erection.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I, on the other hand, interrupt people because my thoughts fly out of my mouth. My handbag's full of rubbish. And I want to do something that matters with my life. Right now I'd like to write plays, sing in musicals, and/or rid the world of poverty, violence, cruelty, and right-wing conservative politics.

~ Alison Larkin

He [Shakespeare] was a wordsmith who loved to act and to see things from many points of view.(...) His genius lay in being able to see all sides of an argument.

~ Tina Packer

Each person must implement their preferred problem solving method to address existential questions pertaining to life and death, living and loving, working and playing, resting and restructuring.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Then in the spring something happened to me. Yes, I remember. I fell in love with James Tyrone and was so happy for time.

~ Eugene O'neill

Don't even try making out I’m making this up. I’ve got proof. Evidence.

~ Diane Samuels

Why won’t you help me?
You have to able to manage on your own.

~ Diane Samuels

I set up and staged hundreds of ends-of-the-world and watched, enthralled, as they played themselves out.

~ Annie Dillard

...and tell you the worst of me and try to give you the best of me...

~ Sarah Kane

Emotions tend to entwine Earthlings together.

~ Ruchira Khanna

It is amazing how sharing of one’s intimate details can make human beings forget the formality of a relationship and bring them closer together.

~ Ruchira Khanna

You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as you - or else I pretended to. I am really not quite sure which - I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other.

~ Henrik Ibsen

Oh, come on! Nobody's favorite color is BROWN!

~ Lee Blessing

MASHA. Just think, I am already beginning to forget her face. People will not remember us either. They will forget.VERSHININ. Yes. They will forget. That is our fate, you can't do anything about it. The things which to us seem serious, significant, very important, - the time will come - they will be forgotten or they will seem of no consequence.

~ Anton Chekhov

Books have power to bring you glory or doom, it all depends on perception.

~ Nikita Dudani

Thus like a Captive in an Isle confin'd,Man walks at large, a Pris'ner of the Mind

~ John Dryden

Small boys often produce their own plays; but usually the parts are not written out. They hardly need to be, for the main line of each character is always Stick 'em up! In these plays the curtain is always rung down on a set of corpses, for small boys are by nature through and uncompromising.

~ A.s. Neill

You aren’t allowed back until you’ve learned to willingly suspend disbelief.

~ Rebecca Murphy

Try to be the best, try never to be the worst! Live and play the role honey plays on your tongue in the lives of people, never do the job that pepper does on your eyes to others!

~ Israelmore Ayivor

Orpheus never liked words. He had his music. He would get a funny look on his face and I would say what are you thinking about and he would always be thinking about music.If we were in a restaurant sometimes Orpheus would look sullen and wouldn't talk to me and I thought people felt sorry for me. I should have realized that women envied me. Their husbands talked too much.But I wanted to talk to him about my notions. I was working on a new philosophical system. It involved hats.This is what it is to love an artist: The moon is always rising above your house. The houses of your neighbors look dull and lacking in moonlight. But he is always going away from you. Inside his head there is always something more beautiful.Orpheus said the mind is a slide ruler. It can fit around anything. Show me your body, he said. It only means one thing.

~ Sarah Ruhl

[L]ife is a phenomenon in need of criticism, for we are, as fallen creatures, in permanent danger of worshipping false gods, of failing to understand ourselves and misinterpreting the behaviour of others, of growing unproductively anxious or desirous, and of losing ourselves to vanity and error. Surreptitiously and beguilingly, then, with humour or gravity, works of art--novels, poems, plays, paintings or films--can function as vehicles to explain our condition to us. They may act as guides to a truer, more judicious, more intelligent understanding of the world.

~ Alain De Botton

A book is a place where my reality, escapism, hope, despair, love and death lie.

~ Nikita Dudani

My only wish is to be buried with my books.

~ Nikita Dudani

In the first play, the crisis is Thomas More. In the second it’s Anne Boleyn. In the third book, and the third play, it’s crisis every day, an overlapping series of only just negotiable horrors. It’s climbing and climbing. Then a sudden abrupt fall - within days.

~ Hilary Mantel

School plays were invented partly to give parents and easy opportunity to demonstrate their priorities.

~ Calvin Trillin

So always avoid banality. That is, avoid illustrating the author's words and remarks. If you want to create a true masterpiece you must always avoid beautiful lies: the truths on the calender under each date you find a proverb or saying such as: He who is good to others will be happy. But this is not true. It is a lie. The spectator, perhaps, is content. The spectator likes easy truths. But we are not there to please or pander to the spectator. We are here to tell the truth.

~ Jerzy Grotowski

DANWhat do you want?ALICETo be loved.DANThat simple?ALICE It's a big want.

~ Patrick Marber