Martin McDonagh Quotes

Though it may not seem like it, I never try to write about a place, per se; it's always, first and last, about story. Story is everything. Story and a bit of attitude.

To Pussy
(1981-1995)

I never feel like a smug or a smart-alec film director, and there are plenty of those around.

I fell into the theatre because I felt I was doing it well, and I stuck to it for the same reason.

VALENE: Father Walsh, now...
COLEMAN: Father Walsh, Father Walsh...
WELSH (exiting, screaming): Me name's Welsh!!!

People say you should only write what you know. But you only write what you know because you are too fucking stupid to make anything up.

I think as a writer you never have to flee from fame because you're not that visible in the first place, but, after the Broadway success of 'Beauty Queen,' people were coming up to me all the time, and I wasn't really prepared for that level of attention.

An Irishman I am, begora! With a heart and a spirit on
me not crushed be a hundred years of oppression. I'll be getting me
shillelagh out next, wait'll you see.

I'd just like to thank everybody who was involved in the film, especially Brendan Gleeson and Ruaidhri Conroy. And Ruaidhri, I'm sorry that you couldn't be here tonight, but I hope next time they let you into the country.

The fact that ticket prices are way too expensive, and there's only one bunch of people going to see Broadway shows, is something I've never liked.

It's like two years straight out of your life doing a film. It's very enjoyable, especially working with the guys, but I kind of like the idea of traveling and growing, and developing as a writer and as a filmmaker.

I don't even subscribe to writer's block being a truthful thing. I've had writer's laziness quite often. But I think it's all about sitting down and facing down the blank page and doing it, and I've always been ok at that.

It doesn't feel like you're preaching, if you can say something in a joke.

I hope there's some kind of morality in all my work.

I can't stand up in front of people. It just fills me with horror.

Theatre was an art form that I didn't really respect, and because I wanted to shake it up and do different things on stage, I was able to combine all the things I'd learnt through writing on my own.

'Pulp Fiction' is an amazing film, and I haven't made one nearly as good.

I think if you're writing a play, it should be its own end game; you'll never get to do a good one unless you know it's not a blueprint for a film; you're not going to get the action right and the story right.

Right at this moment, I don't care if they kill me. I don't care. But they're not going to kill my stories. They're not going to kill my stories. They're all I've got.

When you've got good actors, they're going to come up with good stuff, but you're never quite sure how the dynamics are going to work between them.

I seldom feel comfortable in a theatre. I always feel like I own a cinema. I feel equally happy in an empty one as a full one. Probably happier in an empty one!

My plays are always pushing towards cinema anyway. They're down and dirty, real and more fun.

If you've got time to waste, you might as well waste it listening to people.

I suppose I walk that line between comedy and cruelty because I think one illuminates the other. We're all cruel, aren't we? We are all extreme in one way or another at times and that's what drama, since the Greeks, has dealt with.

With a stage play, they can't cut a word; you can be in rehearsals every day, you cast it, you cast the director, too; the amount of control for a playwright is almost infinite, so you have that control over the finished product.

It's the way that I think about the world, and the way that I like to tell stories - I don't think you should get too heavy. There's enough out there, in the world, with violence. I think that comedy lightens the heaviness [of the world].

I don't feel I have to defend myself for being English or for being Irish, because, in a way, I don't feel either. And, in another way, of course, I'm both.