I have learned that neither kindness or cruelty by themselves, or independent of each other, create any effect beyond themselves. Edward Albee More Quotes by Edward Albee More Quotes From Edward Albee There's always the danger that there are so damn many things that a playwright can examine in this society of ours - things that have less to do with his artistic work than have to do with the critical and aesthetic environment - that perhaps he does have to worry about whether or not he is writing too fast. But then also, perhaps he should worry about getting as many plays on as possible before the inevitable ax falls. Edward Albee playwritingfall There are always going to be more actors than anybody can ever use. Edward Albee actorsactinguse The difference between critics and audiences is that one is a group of humans and one is not. Edward Albee groupseditorsdifferences The thing that makes a creative person is to be creative and that is all there is to it. Edward Albee theatrecreativeart Writing should be useful. If it can’t instruct people a little bit more about the responsibilities of consciousness, there’s no point in doing it. Edward Albee responsibilitywritingpeople What I wanted to get at is the value difference between pornographic playing-cards when you're a kid, and pornographic playing-cards when you're older. It's that when you're a kid you use the cards as a substitute for a real experience, and when you're older you use real experience as a substitute for the fantasy. Edward Albee differencesrealkids Any definition which limits us is deplorable. Edward Albee definitionslimits American critics are like American universities. They both have dull and half-dead faculties. Edward Albee halfeducationinspirational I think that's foolishness on the part of the playwright to write about himself. People don't know anything about themselves. Edward Albee writingpeoplethinking Im not suggesting that the play is without fault; all of my plays are imperfect, Im rather happy to say-it leaves me something to do. Edward Albee faultsplayhappiness I think you remember everything ... you just can't bring it to mind all the time. Edward Albee remembers-everythingmemoriesthinking Being different is ... interesting; there's nothing implicitly inferior or superior about it. Great difference, of course, produces natural caution; and if the differences are too extreme ... well, then, reality tends to fade away. Edward Albee differencesrealityinteresting The notion that women are less aesthetically profound and innovative than men--just not very important, if you know what I mean--doubtless spreads back to our beginnings as upright animals: the males hunted and killed for the family while the females stayed home in the cave and tended the strange little creatures they were giving birth to. Edward Albee womenhomemean There are lots of young vital playwrights who are experimenting, and these are the plays that people who are interested in the theatre should see. They should go off Broadway. They should go to the cafe theatres and see the experiments that are being made. Edward Albee theatreplaypeople Art is nowhere near as dangerous as it should be. Edward Albee dangerousshouldart When I'm writing a play I hear it like music. I use the same indications that a composer does for duration. There's a difference, I tell my students, between a semi-colon and a period. A difference in duration. And we have all these wonderful things, we use commas and underlining and all the wonderful punctuation things we can use in the same way a composer uses them in music. And we can indicate, as specifically as a composer, the way we want our piece to sound. Edward Albee differencesplaywriting You find very few critics who approach their job with a combination of information and enthusiasm and humility that makes for a good critic. But there is nothing wrong with critics as long as people don't pay any attention to them. I mean, nobody wants to put them out of a job and a good critic is not necessarily a dead critic. It's just that people take what a critic says as a fact rather than an opinion, and you have to know whether the opinion of the critic is informed or uninformed, intelligent of stupid -- but most people don't take the trouble. Edward Albee stupidjobsmean Death is release, if you've lived all right. Edward Albee releaseifsdeath Musical beds is the faculty sport around here. Edward Albee musicalbedsports I don't think I've ever written about me. I'm not a character in any of my plays, except that boy, that silent boy that turns up in Three Tall Women. Edward Albee characterboysthinking
