I very much write from characters. Those people start speaking, and then I have them in the house with me and I live with them. Then at some point, it's time to get them out of the house. You can only live with someone like Dr. Georgeous Teitelbaum from THE SISTERS ROSENSWEIG for so long, and then it's time for her to go. But it is very like having the company of these people and trying to craft them in some way into a story.

Wendy Wasserstein

Categorized in : Long Character Writing

Don't live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable.

Wendy Wasserstein

encouraging dream graduation

The signature of a truly enviable woman is the tenacity and continuity of her women friends.

Wendy Wasserstein

continuity tenacity signatures

No matter how successful I become as a playwright, my mother would be thrilled to hear me tell her that I'd just lost twenty pounds, gotten married and become a lawyer.

Wendy Wasserstein

women successful mother

The arts reflect profoundly the most democratic credo, the belief in an individual vision or voice . . . The arts' belief in potential gives each of us -- both audience and creator -- pride in our society's ability to nurture individuals.

Wendy Wasserstein

voice pride art

I really worked at becoming more assertive, and now none of my friends talk to me.

Wendy Wasserstein

assertive talk-to-me becoming

I thought I would write something that would make some people uncomfortable. . . . What intrigued me, I think, was the idea of women of my own generation who were successful, intelligent, coming to power and suddenly in the public arena. I started to think about what they are allowed and what they are not allowed.

Wendy Wasserstein

intelligent successful writing

I'm not going to throw my imagination away. I refuse to lie down to expectation. If I can just hold out till I'm thirty, I'll be incredible.

Wendy Wasserstein

imagination expectations lying

Every year I resolve to be a little less the me I know and leave a little room for the me I could be. Every year I make a note not to feel left behind by my friends and family who have managed to change far more than I.

Wendy Wasserstein

family-and-friends littles years

I wrote my first play, Uncommon Women and Others, in the hopes of seeing an all-female curtain call in the basement of the Yale School of Drama. A man in the audience stood up during a post show discussion and announced, “I can't get into this, it's all about girls.” I thought to myself, “Well, I've been getting in to Hamlet and Laurence of Arabia my whole life, so you better start trying.”

Wendy Wasserstein

girl drama school

The trick. . .is to find the balance between the bright colors of humor and the serious issues of identity, self-loathing, and the possibility for intimacy and love when it seems no longer possible or, sadder yet, no longer necessary.

Wendy Wasserstein

issues self happiness

As I ramble through life, whatever be my goal, I will unfortunately always keep my eye upon the doughnut and not upon the whole.

Wendy Wasserstein

eye loss food

The struggle to be considered a grown-up begins, I believe, shortly after birth.

Wendy Wasserstein

birth struggle believe

Our lives are not totally random. We make commitments, we cause things to happen.

Wendy Wasserstein

plans causes commitment

No matter how lonely you get or how many birth announcements you receive, the trick is not to get frightened. There's nothing wrong with being alone.

Wendy Wasserstein

being-alone lonely loneliness

The real reason for comedy is to hide the pain.

Wendy Wasserstein

comedy pain real

anyone who writes plays is unbelievably persistent, because there isn't a need in the world for plays. Somehow you internally have to feel a need to write a play.

Wendy Wasserstein

play writing needs

I don't much like to think that being a bachelor girl limits how you see the world. On the other hand, I know it certainly limits how the world sees you.

Wendy Wasserstein

girl hands thinking

Being a grownup means assuming responsibility for yourself, for your children, and - here's the big curve - for your parents.

Wendy Wasserstein

responsibility mean children

The marriages come and go but your friendships stay, which is the opposite of what it used to be, so that there will be people in our lives for 30 years and often it is not your husband, it's your women friends, male friends with whom you come of age.

Wendy Wasserstein

husband opposites years

Anyone who is considered funny will tell you, sometimes without your even asking, that deep inside they are very serious, neurotic, introspective people.

Wendy Wasserstein

asking mind people