Beth Henley Quotes

The impetus behind going to graduate school was a year after graduating from college spent in Dallas working at the dog food factory and Bank America and not having met success in my chosen field, which at that point was being an actress.

Then, when I was a senior in high school, I was kind of bereft and she put me in an acting class.

I tried to start a theatre in LA and failed miserably, but I was probably not meant to raise money.

Some really good things kind of swing both ways and I like to see people that can swing really, really, really sad and horrible and terrible and really, really, really beautiful and funny.

That's what I like about [smoking] ... taking a drag off of death, Mmm! Gives me a sense of controlling my own destiny. What power! What exhilaration! Want a drag?

It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.

There are probably brilliant people, geniuses, alive today who don't even know how to say, "Hello, how do you do?" because their minds are absorbed with electronic images.

Then I went off to Southern Methodist University in Dallas. They had a really wonderful theatre department.

I just loved being divorced from my own wretchedness.

But here's the thing: what you do as a screenwriter is you sell your copyright. As a novelist, as a poet, as a playwright, you maintain your copyright.

What I loved about the acting class was that you got to think all day long about a person that wasn't you, and figure out why they were sad and what they wanted, what they dreamed.

I love writing for the screen.

The most glorious thing about working in the collaborative art is when you have somebody like Susan Kingsley or Kathy Bates who are better than your play.

I'm very into the first production of the show.

The next thing I wrote was in a writing class at night school. It was about a poor woman who worked at a dime store and who was all alone for Christmas in Laurel, Mississippi.

Plays are so much more special if they've never ever had a production, but I think you can really work on a play and make it better with each production.

You can't just go in there and open your mouth until the cast and director feel comfortable with you.

It's called Sisters of the Winter Madrigal. It was interesting for me to see it done after so many years; because I wrote it and I didn't realize what a rage I was in.

It's really interesting that whenever you do something that is so out of character, like having an emotional outburst, that you don't get in trouble.

In movement class, you had to lie on the floor and get your alignment in to pass the class.

I did write a couple of original screenplays, but I'd rather write plays.