Play Writing Quotes

The stuff that I write doesn't work very well as background music. You have to watch it from beginning to end and pay attention as if you were watching a play. ~ Aaron Sorkin

Nothing makes me happier than writing a song that I think is good or that I want to play. Writing songs helps me. ~ Nina Nesbitt

There are so many rules about play writing. I'd have a nervous breakdown if I followed them. ~ Terrence McNally

It's hard to explain why exactly, but I think that when I began writing plays, it was from an actor's point of view more than anything. I had the feeling that if you put yourself in the position of the actor on stage and write from that perspective, it would give you a certain advantage in terms of being inside of the play. ~ Sam Shepard

If Shakespeare had lived in our age, he would have been sued for writing Romeo And Juliet, because as everybody knows, he plagiarized that from an Italian play. ~ Lloyd Kaufman

I feel think the next logical step is acting, which I think is cool but I never got the acting bug. I never looked at a movie and thought "I wanna act," but after seeing that play I thought, "I wanna write a movie, and I wanna write a play." I will write a movie and I will write a play. ~ Ryan Montgomery

Take some wood and canvas and nails and things. Build yourself a theater, a stage, light it, learn about it. When you've done that you will probably know how to write a play. ~ Eugene O'Neill

What I'm really involved in when I'm writing is something that no one ever mentions when they see any play. Writing is like trying to make gunpowder out of chemicals. You have these words and sentences and the strange meanings and associations that are attached to the words and sentences, and you're somehow cooking these things all up so that they suddenly explode and have a powerful effect. That's what absorbs me from day to day in writing a play. ~ Wallace Shawn

In the rough-and-tumble play of politics, dog-whistle messages are copiously dispatched over the heads of the grassroots people that cannot see the writing on the wall and have to remain in the cold, like dumb puppets on a string. ("What after bowling alone?" ) ~ Erik Pevernagie

New songs are why artists go on the road. That's why I go on the road. It's a three-prong play. Writing: You're intrigued. Recording: It brings it to life. And then you want to share it. ~ Jon Bon Jovi

I have made no attempt at chronology. My writing hasn't changed much over the years. That's because I haven't changed. I am still the impractical dreamer that I was sixty years ago, when I decided that writing would be my vocation and my profession. I do not suffer from writer's block. I have only to sit down at my desk for the words to come tumbling on to my writing pad. And if an ant moves across my desk, I shall record its transit. ~ Ruskin Bond

And Now for a Topic of International Concern:
Corn Thinks

/Kôrn/ -
It does not sink.
It does not blink.
It does not look pink–
Nor does it write in pen and ink.

It does not slink.
It does not link.
It does not like finks–
Nor does it lie; hood or play tiddlywinks.

It is distinct.
It is succinct.
It is not a Sphinx -
Corn thinks.

-Poems on the Run, Vol. I ~ Douglas Laurent

I never really had novel-writing instruction like people do in MFA programs. ~ Jess Row

He looked just perfect to play Dorian Gray in a film version of Oscar Wilde's novel. Young, graceful, and indecently fresh and handsome, he could easily have worn a badge that said READY FOR DEBAUCHERY! ~ Sergei Lukyanenko

writing is a sanity-saving companion for people in times of grief, loss, illness, and other accidents of fate. ~ William Zinsser

Here's a writing craft tool that you can remove from your toolbox and throw away: description. It's the stuff that most readers skim. Even when deftly done using the five senses it's a lead weight. It isn't needed anymore. ~ Donald Maass

Just because you feel lost doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong. Feeling certain that you are correct in every decision and situation is an addiction. If you think that the journey of self-discovery will bring you more solid facts and certainties about yourself and the world, you will be frustrated. The more you see, the more lost you will feel. That is natural. The more you discover of yourself, the more confused you will become. This is natural. The wiser you get, the more you will see that there are many paths walked by just as many people, and that just because yours is different from someone else's doesn't mean one of you is wrong. This is natural. Over time, you will develop humility, compassion, and a higher tolerance for confusion. If you allow the feeling of being lost to drive you into a search for absolute truths and correct answers, you may feel more secure when you get there, but in reality, you will be taking a step back. Allow yourself to be lost, and you will see so much more of the forest of your soul than if you beeline back for the trail. Explore. Get lost. Embrace the inevitability of confusion. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

Humans are fascinated by emotional material. We are always intrigued by the news and tragic events that are covered in the TV, radio, and newspapers. ~ Ruchira Khanna

People could play blindness and deafness game when it comes to your work and achievements. But your work will alway be a mega picture in their midst and your words will always be your voice that will never depart from their ears. ~ Euginia Herlihy

Narrative nonfiction is an act of conception and construction; it is formation of a personal legend from the mist of memory using mental hydraulics plied with the tools of logic, structure, design, and imagination. An engaged mind possesses a documentary sensibility that fabricates a memoirist identity, which alliance mollifies their bleak interior critic. A conscientious mind hews a residue of meaning from the verisimilitude of a person's metafictional baggage. A basic impulse of all free people is to speak to an appreciative audience. Writing the story of our life constitutes asserting the universal human right to declare and define who we are. When we write our story, we become a stakeholder of our place in the world, we affirm the right to shape our future, and avow the verity to heal our torn souls. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Retiring from writing is not to retire from life. ~ Jim Crace

My last book was speculative. I just don't quite know what I am doing. But I'll get there. I have a list of things I would love to write. ~ Jami Attenberg

I don't obsess over things that other girls care about, like clothes, movie stars, hair, painting nails, knitting or whatever shit they're into. I just want to eat a bunch of hot wings, sleep, play ball, and maybe, someday, make out with Ty. ~ Miranda Kenneally

To be an artist, you need to play inside your work. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

There is no such thing as a good writer and a bad liar. ~ Amy Bloom

Attention and focus are essential skills for writers in a noise-filled world. ~ Anne H. Janzer

So long as I have questions to which there are no answers, I shall go on writing. ~ Clarice Lispector

Every night before you go to bed write down three things good that happened to you that day. That's pretty much all it takes to get a happiness boost over time. ~ Eric Barker

However, more important to all of that: the players played the game as a true team. There are many teams in baseball, but not all play as a team. Many merely play as a group of talented athletes, which is a huge difference over the course of a long season. ~ Michael Delaware

The struggle to write continues within me. I aim to write with more depth, clarity, purpose, and substance. ~ Avijeet Das

That's why we all play the game. You want to be a player; you want to be out there to play. ~ Jimmy Garoppolo

I think that the dark side of MFA programs is that they're generating more poets than the culture can absorb and there are more people writing poetry than possibly read it or can certainly earn a living around it. ~ Edward Hirsch

Me, personally, I tell dude 137 how I'm adding an embossed slogan to my dildos. Cast in high-relief going around the base, it's going to say, "The Dick That Killed Cassie Wright ... " On the thickest part, so if you twist it the letters of the writing stimulate the clit. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

No one can learn to love by following a manual and no one can learn to write by following a course. I'm not telling you to find people with different skills from yourself, because writing is no different from any other activity done with joy and enthusiasm. ~ Paulo Coelho

Just write. It doesn't matter what you write. Just sit at your desk and write. ~ Emma Thompson

A wise man can play the part of a clown, but a clown can't play the part of a wise man. ~ Malcolm X

There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it. His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration. When he reads a novel, he wants either his sense tormented or his spirits raised. He wants to be transported, instantly, either to mock damnation or a mock innocence. ~ Flannery O'Connor

They rule, not because they want to, but because they are; they are not at liberty to play second. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I like roles that are on the extreme ends of the spectrum, and there's special appeal in exploring these slightly forgotten plays that people might think of as subjects for academic term papers instead of live theater. ~ Geoffrey Rush

I see an actress smoking a cigarette in an old Fred McMurray movie. She's clever and beautiful and manipulative. I feel envy. I suddenly wish I smoked cigarettes and was as clever and beautiful and manipulative as she. I want to be that way at the restaurants I visit, as I'm walking to my car, with certain friends who might understand.
The actress has played her part well; she's made me want to emulate her base desires if only for a while. Does that make me impressionable, a fool, or someone who will recognize the deepest secrets of her heart?
I fight hard to stay young - to keep the lines from further etching my face and hands and breasts, presumably to trick the world into believing I am young.
I'm an actress playing a part. I'm afraid to tell the truth. I fear losing those younger or becoming those older. In the presence of youth, a sort of unseen age-osmosis occurs within me. The years drop away and I don't want to leave. It's utterly selfish but I don't care. After all, I'm no older than they - I've just been so longer. I was nineteen only yesterday and they don't retire nineteen-year-old actresses. ~ Chila Woychik

What doesn't kill us gives us something new to write about. ~ Julie Wright

The virtue you would like to have, assume it is already yours, appropriate it, enter into the part and live the character just as the great actor is absorbed in ... the part he plays. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you want your own distinctive voice, you first have to become someone ... ~ John Geddes

The best way to send information is to wrap it up in a person. ~ J. Robert Oppenheimer

She made mistakes and others made up their minds about her. People around here don't let you forget your misdeeds. They think them the only things worth writing down. ~ Hannah Kent

I would never be one to critique the announcers when I watched games. I try to watch the play and listen to the broadcasters and what they are pointing out. I was never one to say this one was good or bad. ~ John Madden

You have to throw yourself away when you write. ~ Maxwell Perkins

I don't ask for much. I don't ask to be rich, and I don't ask to be famous, and I don't ask to play center field for the New York Yankees. I just want to get married and have a wife, and a house, and I want to have a kid, and I want to go see him be a tooth in the school play! ~ Tom Hanks

Writers have no real area of expertise. They are merely generalists with a highly inflamed sense of punctuation. ~ Lorrie Moore

I never set out to do this; I never set out to say, 'Can I break this record?' Then all of a sudden, the preparations made for the celebration put pressure on me. I said, 'Okay, I have to get there.' After 2,130, there was sort of a realization it was a foregone conclusion you're going to play tomorrow. ~ Cal Ripken, Jr.

When you're writing you're constantly fighting demons to sit down and do what you do. If you listen to the voices outside your head, in addition to the ones inside your head, you'll never get anything done. There's enough inner strife. ~ Melissa Rosenberg

I have found that a writer is formed not so much by their experiences but by the way in which they view and capture those experiences. ~ Sophia Rose