The Stage Quotes

To stand up on the stage is to say to many people: Look at me. How can you do that without speaking the only truth you know? There is no such thing as an uncommitted actor. ~ Judith Malina

I reached the stage where I was afraid to wiggle my leg, but then I thought 'why shouldn't I?' It's what I do and now I know how to turn an audience on again. ~ Steve Marriott

You cannot imagine how great it is to step out on the stage with thousands of screaming fans loving you. ~ Eddie Cibrian

The truth is that the spectators are always in their senses, and know, from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only players. ~ Samuel Johnson

There is no definitive list of the duties of a stage manager that is applicable to all theaters and staging environments. Regardless of specific duties, however, the stage manager is the individual who accepts responsibility for the smooth running of rehearsals and performances, on stage and backstage. ~ Laurence Sterne

I'm actually sometimes nervous right before a performance, but as soon as I'm on the stage I'm like, 'okay, we're gonna rock this baby.' ~ Armin Van Buuren

The physical world exists, but that's only the paint and canvas; that's only the instrument we use to make music; that's only the stage where the play is performed. ~ Dennis Vickers

I tell people 'America's Got Talent' is the best summer job you could have - you get to watch people strive for their dreams all summer long. So when you see me rooting for these people or dancing on the side of the stage, that's what I'd be doing if I was watching this show at home! ~ Nick Cannon

Infectious smile has infected tears
The laughter strikes with spears
I am not dear and they are not sincere
Feeling fear
I must perform
For when I stop the stage is gone ~ Louis Cecile

Jacob smiled from ear to ear when he shook the man's hand on stage. The man then handed him a trophy. "Tell the audience about your book."
My little brother confidently walked up to a microphone his height and beamed to the crowd. "I wrote about the person I love the most, my older brother, Noah. We don't live together so I wrote what I imagine he does when we're not together."
"And what is that?" prodded the stout man.
"He's a superhero who saves people in danger, because he saved me and my brother from dying in a fire a couple of years ago. Noah is better than Batman." The crowd chuckled.
"I love you, too, lil' bro." I couldn't help it. To see him standing there, still worshipping me like he did when he was five … it was too much.
Jacob's smile reached a whole new level of excitement. "Noah!" He pointed right to me. "That's Noah. That's my brother, Noah!" Ignoring his foster parents, Jacob flew off the stage and ran down the middle aisle.
Joe lowered his head and Carrie rubbed her eyes. Jacob raced into my arms and the crowd erupted into applause.
"I've missed you, Noah." Jacob's voice broke, bringing tears to my eyes. I couldn't cry. Not in front of Jacob and not in front of Mrs. Collins. I needed to be a man and stay strong.
"I've missed you, too, bro. I'm so proud of you." ~ Katie McGarry

If I see a human body on the stage, I don't see it as an abstraction. I see it as a body. ~ Antony Tudor

Such is life, my fellow-mummers-just like a poor player that bluffs and feints his hour upon the stage, and then cheapens down to mere nonentity. But let me not hear any small witticism to the further effect that its story is a tale told by a vulgarian, full of slang and blanky, signifying-nothing. ~ Joseph Furphy

I love the stage, I love the process of acting in theatre, but unfortunately, it doesn't pay the bills. ~ Kabir Bedi

He was part of the night, the creatures known to him, the restless, untamed land matching his hungry soul. Beau watched him,observing the utter stillness marking the dangerous predator, the merciless eyes moving constantly,missing nothing.The powerful, well-muscled body was deceptively relaxed but ready for anything. The face,harshy sensual, beautifully cruel, was etched with hardship and knowledge,rish and peril. Gregori stayed in the shadows,but the silver menace of his gaze glowed with a strange iridescent light in the dark of the night.
Beau took the opportunity to study Savannah. She was everything up close that she had been on the stage, even more. Ethereal, mysterious, sexy. They very stuff of men's fantasies. Her face was flawless, lit up with joy, her eyes clear,like beautiful blue star sapphires. Her laughter was musical and infectious. She was small and innocent beside the predator in his boat. She would touch Gregori's arm, point to something on the embankment, her body brushing his lightly,and each time it happened,those pale eyes would warm to molten mercury and caress fer face intimately,hungrily. ~ Christine Feehan

The West has never been all of the world that matters. The West has not been the only actor on the stage of modern history even at the peak of the West's power (and this peak has perhaps now already been passed) ... It has not been the West that has been hit by the world; it has been the world that has been hit - and hit hard - by the West. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

A formal period in life where there isn't the worry of another person's dramas and insecurities can be of great advantage, especially when used for growing into the full and wholesome beings we intended to be when choosing to come to this material manifestation.
"Even after ending a long relationship or a marriage, it seems normal to have some alone-time to reflect, meditate, explore areas of interest, find meaning in one's suffering and try to placate the void felt in the heart before attempting to enter into new relationships, otherwise the same old mistakes will surely re-emerge.
"Once we're at the stage of life where we can stand our own silence, where we've made peace with our past, where we've accepted and grown from its lessons, and we would like to share our independence without becoming dependent on someone else for love and affection, then we can choose to commit to a two bodied intimate relationship. ~ Nityananda Das

I'm making art and making decisions and editing things. I don't live my life to broadcast it into the art world; I don't see it as my life on the stage. ~ Frances Stark

One final insight about prioritizing involves getting disciplined about what you don't put on the stage. This means not thinking when you don't have to, becoming disciplined about not paying attention to non-urgent tasks unless, or until, it's truly essential that you do. ~ David Rock

When I play, I open up. I'm in the heat of the performance and it's a healing thing. It's great! It's like a spiritual elevation that occurs when you're playing and becoming one with the instrument or players on the stage. It takes on this incredible feeling of levitating and the molecules spin differently in the moment. ~ Matt Nathanson

The trash bags are gone, the bar wiped clean. The lights have been hung; they line the stage and loop around the Snakehead, making the old axe glow. Stalled in the doorway, Lorca experiences a stomachache he can only call Christmas. ~ Marie-Helene Bertino

...all the great issues in human life make their appearance on Jane Austen's narrow stage. True, it's only the stage of petty domestic circumstance, but that, after all, is the only stage where most of us are likely to meet them. ~ Ian Watt

The Pain of Becoming For the flower, it is fully open at each step of its blossoming. We do ourselves a great disservice by judging where we are in comparison to some final destination. This is one of the pains of aspiring to become something: the stage of development we are in is always seen against the imagined landscape of what we are striving for. So where we are - though closer all the time - is never quite enough. ~ Mark Nepo

Once you do a piece on the stage, you become that poem or you become that piece. That's really who you are. I think that's why some artists have stage names, you know? I don't have a stage name, it's pretty much just me. ~ Clinton D. Powell

On the question of whether mathematics was discovered or invented, Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans had no doubt-mathematics was real, immutable, omnipresent, and more sublime than anything that could conceivably emerge from the feeble human mind. The Pythagoreans literally embedded the universe into mathematics. In fact, to the Pythagoreans, God was not a mathematician-mathematics was God!

The importance of the Pythagorean philosophy lies not only in its actual, intrinsic value. By setting the stage, and to some extent the agenda, for the next generation of philosophers-Plato in particular-the Pythagoreans established a commanding position in Western thought. ~ Mario Livio

EVERYONE JOINS A BAND IN THIS LIFE. You are born into your first one. Your mother plays the lead. She shares the stage with your father and siblings. Or perhaps your father is absent, an empty stool under a spotlight. But he is still a founding member, and if he surfaces one day, you will have to make room for him. As life goes on, you will join other bands, some through friendship, some through romance, some through neighborhoods, school, an army. Maybe you will all dress the same, or laugh at your own private vocabulary. Maybe you will flop on couches backstage, or share a boardroom table, or crowd around a galley inside a ship. But in each band you join, you will play a distinct part, and it will affect you as much as you affect it. And, as is usually the fate with bands, most of them will break up - through distance, differences, divorce, or death. ~ Mitch Albom

To treat a big subject in the intensely summarized fashion demanded by an evening's traffic of the stage when the evening, freely clipped at each end, is reduced to two hours and a half, is a feat of which the difficulty looms large. ~ Henry James

I like it when I'm on the stage, but honestly, I would be very happy if I could cut it off, just enjoy my life when I wasn't performing. ~ Beyonce Knowles

I don't think anyone's particularly conscious of thinking suits are the thing, but when you see a comedian on stage in jeans and a t-shirt it doesn't matter how good they are - it always looks like amateur hour when they walk onto the stage. ~ Jack Dee

I'm hoping to do more with my music. I did the stage musical 'Spring Awakening' recently and it reignited the love I have for singing. ~ Janel Parrish

Alright. Let's get realistic now. You know and I know that the function of that number was just to provide some sort of warm-up trash before we do something HEAVY. Something a little bit harder to listen to, but which is probably better for you in the LONG RUN. The item in this instance, which will be better for you in the LONG RUN, and if we only had a little more space up here we could make it visual for you, is "Some Ballet Music," which we've played at most of our concert series in Europe. Generally in halls where we had a little bit more space and Motorhead and Kansas could actually fling themselves across the stage, and give you their teenage interpretation of the art of The Ballet. I don't think it's too safe to do it here, maybe they can just hug each other a little bit and do some calisthenics in the middle of the stage. ~ Frank Zappa

You get to know what you should have done better regretfully when you watch others take the stage enthusiastically to do what you should have done better ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

I'll play until they have to scrape me off the stage. ~ James Young

But you don't have to let this define you anymore. Leave it here -" he indicated the stage "- where it can fuel rather than fell you. ~ Lesa Howard

I still start to get panicky each morning before I go on television. I'll say, 'I'm in awful shape, something is wrong,' and if I start to look like I'm going off the deep end, Jimmy Straka, the stage manager, will say, 'You're all right. Calm down.' Then Bryant Gumbel will grab me by the leg or something. ~ Willard Scott

What method acting is for the stage, mezzofiction is for the page. ~ Fierce Dolan

If you're a movie actor, you're on your own - you cannot control the stage. The director controls it. ~ Michael Caine

I remember growing up knowing I wanted to be on the stage. I wanted to get to London as soon as possible and start auditioning for theater. ~ Catherine Zeta-Jones

Bullshit!" Thor shouted at the stage, causing the actor playing Estelle to look at the audience. Thor added, "Just leave. Be done with this nightmare of a play! Goddamn cowards! ~ Dylan Callens

Zachary looked down into the swirling morass that was his beer as the man walked onto the stage and started to play a solo piece, the band respectfully allowing him to start off his set by staking his claim. Zachary would give him staking his claim. He had his guitar nestling close by his side, as always, the leather of the case gently touching his calf, sending an almost erotic charge through his body every time he moved like the less than innocent brush of a future lover's hand on a bare arm. ~ Pete Langman

The essence of the stage is concentration and penetration. Of the screen action, movement, sweep. ~ Elia Kazan

Acting has been my passion from the minute I started. I was pretty young when I wanted to be a doctor, but when I started doing theater work as a freshman in high school, the first time I hit the stage I was like, If I can do this every day, life won't get any better! ~ Sophia Bush

I love the stage, but it doesn't pay the mortgage. ~ David Harewood

You should make an effort on stage because it's a performance. The stage should be glittery and camp, but I don't go down the shops in full stage gear. ~ Sophie Ellis-Bextor

I have horrible stage fright - you know how you go through the bi-polar stage fright thing? Then you go on drugs to get over the stage fright and perform, but then you're not funny at all. ~ Roseanne Barr

I like the part where you walk up on the stage and you're up there for the show. I like that part. ~ George Strait

My evolution as a violinist has included many thrilling performances, and I still love what I do, but there are times when even I get burned out. When this happens, I go back to that moment ten years ago. I picture myself on the stage with my bow in the air. I feel my heart racing, I see the faces in the audience smiling, and I remember the moment I thought, "I have to make this my life. ~ Lindsey Stirling

One of the safest places to be in the world is the stage. ~ Frank Langella

I never understood that if you sweat as much as I used to every night, you drain your body of salts. So I got very, very, seriously ill. I got to the stage where I was almost hospitalized with serious problems. ~ Roger Daltrey

Just giving the people a great show, leaving it all on the stage. Like when I'm finished I don't want to go home with nothing, I want to leave it all there on the stage, that's what I'm thinking about before I hit the stage. ~ Snoop Dogg

Own the stage, command the stage, and don't be afraid to be the best you can be. ~ Tessanne Chin

I never pictured myself in California. I just thought I would be a character actress in New York on the stage. I never really had that stardom goal; I just wanted to be able to work as an actress and not as a waitress. ~ Rhea Perlman

Returning to town in the stage-coach, which was filled with Mr. Gilman's guests, we stopped for a minute or two at Kentish Town. A woman asked the coachman, "Are you full inside?" Upon which Lamb put his head through the window and said, "I am quite full inside; that last piece of pudding at Mr. Gilman's did the business for me." ~ Charles Lamb

We are forced to choose, for the processes we have initiated in our lifetime cannot continue in the lifetime of our children. Whatever we do either creates the framework for continuing the supreme adventure of life and consciousness on this planet or sets the stage for its termination. The choice before us is urgent and important: it can neither be postponed nor ignored. ~ Ervin Laszlo

I got to show off in front of my husband, who married me as I was stepping out of the business, so he had no idea that I could strut my stuff on the stage. ~ Kim Wilde

Society is the stage on which manners are shown; novels are the literature. Novels are the journal or record of manners; and the new importance of these books derives from the fact, that the novelist begins to penetrate the surface, and treat this part of life more worthily. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

he had passed the time during which the influence of youth indiscriminately mingles them in the character of impulse, and he had not yet arrived at the stage wherein they become united again, in the character of prejudice, ~ Thomas Hardy

Leaders can change the tenor of the workplace and create harmony in motion toward a favorable result. So every time you say to your team, "Let's rock and roll," make sure you have already set up the stage to where they can actually perform like rock stars. ~ Thomas Huynh

Regression to the stage of early infancy is not a suitable method in and of itself. Such a regression can only be effective if it happens in the natural course of therapy and if the client is able to maintain adult consciousness at the same time. ~ Alice Miller

I'm not going to beat the cancer. I tried really hard ... but sometimes you're just not going to beat the thing ... I wanted to walk off the stage and say anything I thought was important; I had my hour. ~ Randy Pausch

And what's a life? - a weary pilgrimage, Whose glory in one day doth fill the stage With childhood, manhood, and decrepit age. ~ Francis Quarles

But their shoulders were as straight as they had been in the past: in the classroom, on the stage, at the Sabbath table. So there were other sources, too, of pride, and they had not left everything behind. ~ Lois Lowry

All these angels start coming out of the boxes and everywhere, guys carrying crucifixes and stuff all over the place, and the whole bunch of them - thousands of them - singing "Come All Ye Faithful" like mad. Big deal. It's supposed to be religious as hell, I know, and very pretty and all, but I can't see anything religious or pretty, for God's sake, about a bunch of actors carrying crucifixes all over the stage. When they all finished and started going out the boxes again, you could tell they could hardly wait to get a cigarette of something. I saw it with old Sally Hayes the year before, and she kept saying how beautiful it was, the costumes and all. I said old jesus probably would've puked if he could see it. ~ J.D. Salinger

Whereas with us - what you hear is what's happening right then and there on the stage - so we don't need no stinking technology. ~ James Young

SHINee world is strength for me. Because I get strength when I get cheers on the stage. ~ Onew

Today evolution of human intelligence has advanced us to the stage where most of us are too smart to invent new gods but are reluctant to give up the old ones. ~ Ruth Hurmence Green

Your mind makes you dance like a monkey all the time ... Now you have to become stronger; you have to make the mind dance. Make it dance on the stage of mantra. For that, mediate and repeat mantra. ~ Swami Muktananda

When people feel that something really special is happening on the stage, things change. ~ Gustavo Dudamel

Dancing on 'Dancing With The Stars' really broadened my fan base. I jumped off the stage backwards one week, and so many women come up to me now and say, 'You're so brave. I can't believe you put yourself out there like that'. If that inspires some girl out there, then great, because boys aren't the only ones who get to have fun. We get to have fun too. ~ Monique Coleman

There is such malice, treachery, and dissimulation, even among professed friends and intimate companions, as cannot fail to strike a virtuous mind with horror; and when Vice quits the stage for a moment, her place is immediately occupied by Folly... ~ Tobias Smollett

I always like to break out and address the audience. In 'The History Boys', for instance, without any ado, the boys will suddenly turn and talk to the audience and then go back into the action. I find it more adventurous doing it in prose than on the stage, but I like being able to make the reader suddenly sit up. ~ Alan Bennett

Appearing nude on film was not easy when I was twenty-six in Body Heat; it was even harder when I was forty-six in The Graduate, on the stage, which is more up close and personal than film. After my middle-age nude scene, though, I unexpectedly got letters from women saying, "I have not undressed in front of my husband in ten years and I'm going to tonight." Or, "I have not looked in the mirror at my body and you gave me permission."
These affirmations from other women were especially touching to me because when I began The Graduate I'd just come through a period when I felt a great loss of confidence, when my rheumatoid arthritis hit me hard and I literally couldn't walk or do any of the things that I was so used to doing. It used to be that if I said to my body, "Leap across the room now," it would leap instantly. I don't know how I did it, but I did it. I hadn't realized how much my confidence was based on my physicality. On my ability to make my body do whatever I wanted it to do.
I was so consumed, not just by thinking about what I could and couldn't do, but also by handling the pain, the continual, chronic pain. I didn't realize how pain colored my whole world and how depressive it was. Before I was finally able to control my RA with proper medications, I truly had thought that my attractiveness and my ability to be attractive to men was gone, was lost. So for me to come back and do The Graduate was an affirmation to myself. I had my body back. I was back. ~ Kathleen Turner

I'd love to do more TV, but I'd love to get into more feature films. I'd also love to go back to the stage when the time and opportunity is right. I haven't gotten to do a lot of that here in L.A., but my favorite thing to do is live theatre. I'd love to actually have a career where you can kind of move in and out of all of those mediums. ~ Mariana Klaveno

I will not make you a vampire," Mr. Crepsley insisted. "You must forget about it. Go home and get on
with your life."
"No!" Steve screamed. "I won't forget!" He stumbled to his feet and pointed a shaking ringer at the tall,
ugly vampire. "I'll get you for this," he promised. "I don't care how long it takes. One day, Vur Horston,
I'll track you down and kill you for rejecting me!"
Steve jumped from the stage and ran toward the exit. "One day!" he called back over his shoulder, and I
could hear him laughing as he ran, a crazy kind of laugh. ~ Darren Shan

A true artist should have no secrets. On the stage, you must be able to transmit every emotion to the spectator. ~ Anna Pavlova

I could beat my mike stand into the stage, but I was still in pain. Maybe fans liked it, but sometimes people forget you're a person and they're more into the entertainment value. It's taken a long time to turn that around and give a strong show without it being a kamikaze show. ~ Axl Rose

For me, there is very little difference between magic and art. To me, the ultimate act of magic is to create something from nothing: It's like when the stage magician pulls the rabbit from the hat. ~ Alan Moore

My first life fled without a fight and left nothing behind, so I doubt it was a loss worth mourning. A man I don't remember mixed genes with a woman I can't recall, and I was called to the stage. I stumbled through the curtain, squinting into the blinding light of the birth canal, and after a brief and banal performance, I died.
This is the arc of the average life - unexamined, unremarked, unremarkable - and it should have ended there. In simpler times, life was a one-act play, and when it was over we took our bows and caught our roses and enjoyed any applause we earned, then the spotlight faded and we shuffled backstage to nibble crackers in the greenroom of eternity. ~ Isaac Marion

I do so love how all magic comes with its share of dire warnings and unclear requirements," sighed Tybalt. "It's like being on the stage, only there's no director, and the understudies have all died of typhus. ~ Seanan McGuire

In a close-up, the audience is only inches away, and your face becomes the stage. ~ Marlon Brando

This isn't the Democratic party of our fathers and grandfathers. This is the party of Woodstock hippies. I was at Woodstock
I built the stage. And when everything fell apart, and people were fighting for peanut butter sandwiches, it was the National Guard who came in and saved the same people who were protesting them. So when Hillary Clinton a few years ago wanted to build a Woodstock memorial, I said it should be a statue of a National Guardsman feeding a crying hippie. ~ John Ratzenberger

We all have roles in life. I'm a dad, a husband, this and that, but basically I only feel justified in being alive when I'm on the stage. ~ Jack Bruce

It's hard 'coz you have got different time zones; you can't sleep and y'know, it's boring way for the show to happen, but you do off the stage. Y'know, onstage it's all better. ~ Kerry King

What the actor is in private life, he is to a large extent on the stage, because he cannot conceal himself and his true personality from his audience. ~ Leslie Howard

The actors... have long left the stage,, their personal interests have vanished leaving no trace,, and nothing remains of that time, but it's historic results. ~ Leo N. Tolstoi

Ah! poetry makes life what light and music do the stage - strip the one of the false embellishments, and the other of its illusions, and what is there real in either to live or care for? ~ Charles Dickens

If I'm off the stage after two or three years I get itchy and I have to get back onstage. ~ Edward Herrmann

I was once almost forced off the stage at a large chain bookstore that shall remain nameless, because she introduced me as Lemony Snicket, and I immediately interrupted her and said, "Oh no, Lemony Snicket isn't here," and then she tried to cancel the event right then and there. ~ Daniel Handler

I don't think that many performers necessarily want to see their audience empowered. I think a lot of performers, no different from priests, need the hierarchy. Modern, celebrity-driven entertainment turns the stage into an altar, and so many celebrities refuse to be removed from those altars once they manage to ascend. They will not be taken down - the Goddess is offended ... As a storyteller in the old tradition, you held an important place at the circle. Your position was fluid, not necessarily permanent, but it demanded that you respected the others witnessing your performance as much as they respected you. All storytellers, all troubadours worth their salt knew their myths. ~ Tori Amos

Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage. ~ Edward Albee

I think Kellie Martin, Reese Witherspoon and Claire Danes represent the future for women in film, and I would be honored to share the stage with any one of them. ~ Fred Savage

I think you've got to worry when you start flying flags. There's a lot of political connotations that come with waving flags around the stage. But the flag will make an appearance. I think it's more likely to be draped around an instrument than waved around. ~ Simon Taylor-Davis

He wanted nothing more to do with love; he was fed up with the whole business. He had thought that he could just give up and follow his father's advice, but he had advanced too far in his work; he had crossed the abyss that separates a man from his dream, and now there was no going back. He couldn't go forward or back. It was easier just to leave the stage. ~ Paulo Coelho

Jase and I asked Mia what she wanted to do before her surgery. "How about a family party?" she suggested. So the invitation went out. It's interesting when you mention to family members that they are going to be on TV--schwoom, they are there. As Willie said, "I didn't know we had this much family."
Mia had always heard the funny stories about Jase wrestling with his brothers and cousins growing up, particularly how cousin Amy beat up Willie, so that's what she requested for the special entertainment. As Jase said, "It's the ultimate redneck dinner theater." A wrestling ring was delivered, and the warmup act was the Robertson boys clowning around, performing their best wrestling moves. Willie surprised everyone with guest professional wrestlers, including Jase's favorite, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan.
I felt kind of bad for them, wearing only their little wrestling pants, while the rest of us were bundled up in winter coats. Yes, it was January, but it was unusually cold in Louisiana--about twenty degrees. The wrestlers had to keep moving fast; otherwise, they would have frozen to death!
At the end of the party, Mia took the stage between Jase and Willie, thanking everyone for coming and then sharing from her heart: "My favorite verse is Psalm 46:10: 'Be still, and know that I am God!' God is bigger than all of us, and He is bigger than any of your struggles, too." I think I can say that there was hardly a dry eye in the crowd. Going into her surgery, Mia was being bra ~ Missy Robertson

The stage is close to being in the middle of the hall, so that the performers are surrounded by the listeners. I feel that we are all experiencing the music together. ~ Emanuel Ax

What you're hoping for about the concert is an overall collective experience that everyone has and that you share with them and when you hit the stage you have a "common" feeling. Even though you're the performer and they're the audience there's something uniting everybody in the room. ~ Joel Plaskett

I have always felt that the great lottery of life is unfair. The fact is that I was thrown up on the stage of life called Australia. You don't choose where you are thrown on to this stage. So universal health, universal education, of course plenty of food and clean water. ~ Tim Costello

The Constitution is a limitation of the government, not on private individuals--that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government--that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizens' protection against the government.

Instead of being a protector of man's rights, the government is becoming their most dangerous violator; instead of guarding freedom, the government is establishing slavery; instead of protecting men from the initiators of physical force, the government is initiating physical force and coercion in any manner and issue it pleases; instead of serving as the instrument of objectivity in human relationships, the government is creating a deadly, subterranean reign of uncertainty and fear, by means of nonobjective laws whose interpretation is left to the arbitrary decisions of random bureaucrats; instead of protecting men from injury by whim, the government is arrogating to itself the power of unlimited whim--so that we are fast approaching the stage of ultimate inversion; the stage where the government is "free" to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may only act by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of humanity, the stage of rule by brute force. ~ Ayn Rand

I don't put a girl in a box and clap my hands three times, and she's gone. I get in the box, and I vanish, and I reappear at the other side of the stage. That way, people don't think, 'That's a great illusion.' They think, 'Doug's a great magician.' ~ Doug Henning

I once saw my mother playing Mary Magdalene in a parish event. But she had to put the role aside in order to go and front the choir who were singing at the same occasion. She left the stage halfway through the Crucifixion. ~ Fiona Shaw

When the students were killed at Kent State, the cast voted to do a demonstration from the stage, and I abstained. ~ Holly Near