If I've been accused a number of times of writing plays where the endings are ambivalent, indeed, that's the way I find life. Edward Albee More Quotes by Edward Albee More Quotes From Edward Albee 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 character boys thinking I was twenty-nine years old and I wasn't a very good poet and I wasn't a very good novelist, [so] I thought I would try writing a play, which seems to have worked out a little better. Edward Albee play writing years Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it. A good writer turns fact into truth; a bad writer will, more often than not, accomplish the opposite. Edward Albee truth writing reality I said I was impressed, Martha. I'm beside myself with jealousy. What do you want me to do, throw up? Edward Albee impressed want said And the west, encumbered by crippling alliances, and hardened with a morality too rigid to accommodate itself to the swing of events, must ..... eventually ..... fall. Edward Albee swings events fall You want to dance with me, angel tits? Edward Albee angel want Well, when you write about people of a certain age ... we are in a postsexual situation. If I write about younger people then I write sexually, because their drive is sexual. It depends upon the circumstances. Edward Albee age writing people I swear, if you existed I'd divorce you. Edward Albee divorce swear ifs When you write a play, you make a set of assumptions -- that you have something to say, that you know how to say it, that its worth saying, and that maybe someone will come along for the ride. Edward Albee assumption play writing Read the great stuff, but read the stuff that isn't so great, too. Great stuff is very discouraging. If you read only Beckett and Chekhov, you'll go away and only deliver telegrams for Western Union. Edward Albee unions going-away stuff I have been both overpraised and underpraised. I assume by the time I finish writing -- and I plan to go on writing until I'm 90 or gaga -- it will all equal itself out. Edward Albee assuming goes-on writing It is a lazy public which promotes a slothful and irresponsible theater. Edward Albee irresponsible lazy theater Careers are funny things. They begin mysteriously and, just as mysteriously, they can end. Edward Albee funny-things careers ends The government is far more interested in taking, in regulated taking, than in promoting spontaneous generosity. Edward Albee spontaneous generosity government You...you've been here quite a long time, haven't you?" What? Oh...yes. Ever since I married What's-her-name. Uh, Martha. Even before that. Forever. Dashed hopes, and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested. How do you like that for a declension, young man? Edward Albee names men long When you get old, you can't talk to people because people snap at you.... That's why you become deaf, so you won't be able to hear people talking to you that way. Edward Albee able talking people I'm not responsible for the commercialization. The people who produce the plays are responsible for it. Edward Albee responsible play people I do not invent characters. There they are. That's who they are. That's their nature. They talk and they behave the way they want to behave. I don't have a character behaving one way, then a point comes in the play where the person has to either stay or leave. If I had it plotted that the person leaves, then the person leaves. If that's what the person wants to do. I let the person do what the person wants or has to do at the time of the event. Edward Albee events play character In the two or three or four months that it takes me to write a play, I find that the reality of the play is a great deal more alive for me than what passes for reality. I'm infinitely more involved in the reality of the characters and their situation than I am in everyday life. The involvement is terribly intense. Edward Albee writing character reality I find that in the course of the day when I'm writing, after three or four hours of intense work, I have a splitting headache, and I have to stop. Because the involvement, which is both creative and self-critical, is so intense that I've got to stop doing it. Edward Albee creative self writing
