I hate endings. Just detest them. Beginnings are definitely the most exciting, middles are perplexing and endings are a disaster. … The temptation towards resolution, towards wrapping up the package, seems to me a terrible trap. Why not be more honest with the moment? The most authentic endings are the ones which are already revolving towards another beginning. That’s genius.

Sam Shepard

Categorized in : Temptation Hate Why Not

When you hit a wall – of your own imagined limitations – just kick it in.

Sam Shepard

moving-on success motivational

Love is the only disease that makes you feel better.

Sam Shepard

disease feel-better love-is

The fantastic thing about the theatre is that it can make something be seen that's invisible, and that's where my interest in theatre is- that you can be watching this thing happening with actors and costumes and light and set and language, and even plot, and something emerges from beyond that, and that's the image part that I'm looking for, that sort of added dimension.

Sam Shepard

plot theatre light

When you're looking for someone, you're looking for some aspect of yourself, even if you don't know it ... What we're searching for is what we lack.

Sam Shepard

dating motivational inspirational

Character is an essential tendency. It can be covered up, it can be messed with, it can be screwed around with, but it can't be ultimately changed. It's the structure of our bones, the blood that runs through our veins.

Sam Shepard

running character blood

There are places where writing is acting and acting is writing. I'm not so interested in the divisions. I'm interested in the way things cross over.

Sam Shepard

division acting writing

I believe in my mask-- The man I made up is me I believe in my dance-- And my destiny

Sam Shepard

destiny men believe

I feel like I've never had a home, you know? I feel related to the country, to this country, and yet I don't know exactly where I fit in... There's always this kind of nostalgia for a place, a place where you can reckon with yourself.

Sam Shepard

nostalgia home country

Ideas emerge from plays, not the other way around.

Sam Shepard

play way ideas

Beginnings are definitely the most exciting, middles are perplexing and endings are a disaster.

Sam Shepard

disaster exciting

There's no way to escape the fact that we've grown up in a violent culture, we just can't get away from it, it's part of our heritage. I think part of it is that we've always felt somewhat helpless in the face of this vast continent. Helplessness is answered in many ways, but one of them is violence.

Sam Shepard

heritage culture thinking

Words are tools of imagery in motion.

Sam Shepard

imagery tools

In real life we don't know what's going to happen next. So how can you be that way on a stage? Being alive to the possibility of not knowing exactly how everything is going to happen next - if you can find places to have that happen onstage, it can resonate with an experience of living.

Sam Shepard

alive knowing real

I wanted to write a play about double nature ... one that wouldn't be symbolic or metaphorical or any of that stuff. I just wanted to give a taste of what it feels like to be two-sided. It's a real thing, double nature. I think we're split in a much more devastating way than psychology can ever reveal. It's not so cute. Not some little thing we can get over. It's something we've got to live with

Sam Shepard

real writing cute

Being a writer is so great because you're literally not dependent on anybody. Whereas, as an actor, you have to audition or wait for somebody else to make a decision about how to use you, with writing, you can do it anywhere, anytime you want. You don't have to ask permission.

Sam Shepard

decision waiting writing

For me, playwriting is and has always been like making a chair. Your concerns are balance, form, timing, lights, space, music. If you don't have these essentials, you might as well be writing a theoretical essay, not a play.

Sam Shepard

light play writing

I had a definite sense of somehow being a passenger in an evil vehicle crusing through Paradise.

Sam Shepard

paradise vehicle evil

This isn't champagne anymore. We went through the champagne a long time ago. This is serious stuff. The days of champagne are long gone.

Sam Shepard

alcohol gone long

I've heard writers talk about "discovering a voice," but for me that wasn't a problem. There were so many voices that I didn't know where to start.

Sam Shepard

voice problem writing

It's one of the great tragedies of our contemporary life in America, that families fall apart. Almost everybody has that in common.

Sam Shepard

tragedy america fall