If I had not had music in my life, I would be the neurasthenic vision of the playwright. Marsha Norman More Quotes by Marsha Norman More Quotes From Marsha Norman Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you. Marsha Norman dreaminspirationallife We have to hear the stories of women at all ages of their lives in order to really present a picture of what it felt like to be alive in our time. That's what our job is as writers is to present that and create it. Our job as writers isn't to make as much money as we can. Our job is to create a record of this time. That's why if you leave out women and the stories of women, we failed at our mission. All of us. Men and women. Marsha Norman jobsmenorder on the whole the American theater, dominated by men, does not perceive women fighting for their lives as a central issue. Marsha Norman issuesfightingmen There is no point in trying to remember your dreams ... There is only the unspeakable joy of eavesdropping on your spirit, catching tiny glimpses of its independent life, resting for a moment in its wisdom, puzzling, laughing sometimes, over what it's up to, what it makes of you. Marsha Norman independentdreamlaughing Family is just accident.... They don't mean to get on your nerves. They don't even mean to be your family, they just are. Marsha Norman being-thankfulfamilymean Write about the thing that frightens you most. Marsha Norman writing There are things that music can do that language could never do, that painting could never do, or sculpture. Music is capable of going directly to the source of the mystery. It doesn't have to explain it. It can simply celebrate it. Marsha Norman sculpturepaintinglanguage We are not afraid to look under the bed, or to wash the sheets; we know that life is messy. We know that somebody has to clean it up, and that only if it is cleaned up can we hope to start over, and get better. Marsha Norman starting-overget-betterbed Music expresses longing and love and joy better than any piece of dialogue you can ever write. Marsha Norman and-lovewritingjoy No. You can't. And I can't do anything either, about my life, to change it, make it better, make me feel better about it. Like it better, make it work. But I can stop it. Shut it down, turn it off like the radio when there's nothing on I want to listen to. It's all I really have that belongs to me and I'm going to say what happens to it. And it's going to stop. And I'm going to stop it. So. Let's just have a good time. Marsha Norman boredfeel-betterwant Art is how a culture records its life, how it poses questions for the next generation and how it will be remembered. Marsha Norman generationscultureart Mama, I know you used to ride the bus. Riding the bus, and it’s hot and bumpy and crowded and too noisy, and more than anything else in the world, you wanna get off. And the only reason in the world you don’t get off is it’s still fifty blocks from where you’re going. Well, I can get off right now if I want to. Because even if I ride fifty more years and get off then, it’s still the same place when I step down to it. Whenever I feel like it, I can get off. Whenever I’ve had enough, it’s my stop. I’ve had enough. Marsha Norman boredblockyears Knowing is the most profound kind of love, giving someone the gift of knowledge about yourself. Marsha Norman knowinglove-yougiving During the day, our souls gather their ... impressions of us, how our lives feel. ... Our spirits collect these impressions, keep them together, like wisps of smoke in a bag. Then, when we're asleep, our brains open up these bags of smoke ... and take a look. Marsha Norman soultogetherbrain I'm who I was waiting for. I didn't make it. Marsha Norman waiting Success is always something that you have to recover from. Marsha Norman In the theater, when people hear that you're writing a play, they want to know what it's all about, whether there's a role for them. You write it fairly quickly, and it becomes a group activity before you're really ready to have company. Marsha Norman playwritingpeople I feel that I speak the musical language. Marsha Norman musicallanguagespeak At the heart of the failure of most plays is the inability to carry on a thoughtful conversation about your work with yourself. Marsha Norman thoughtfulplayheart If someone wants to say 'I love you' in a straight play, they say it, and then it's the other person's turn to talk. But in a song, you can sing about it for another three minutes. The musical form has that unique opportunity to express at length what joy really feels like. Marsha Norman uniquelove-yousong
