Well, when I was six years old I decided, not that I was going to be, but with my usual modesty, that I was a writer. Edward Albee More Quotes by Edward Albee More Quotes From Edward Albee I write to find out what I'm talking about. Edward Albee writingtalking Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage. Edward Albee playwritinghanging-outstage The most profound indication of social malignancy ... no sense of humor. None of the monoliths could take a joke. Edward Albee humorsocialprofound Each time I sit down and write a play I try to dismiss from my mind as much as I possibly can the implications of what I've done before, what I'm going to do, what other people think about my work, the failure or success of the previous play. I'm stuck with a new reality that I've got to create. Edward Albee writingrealitythinking I don't like symbolism that hits you over the head. A symbol should not be a cymbal. Edward Albee cymbalssymbolismshould I am not interested in living in a city where there isn't a production by Samuel Beckett running. Edward Albee beckettcitiesrunning I stopped acting when I was about nineteen, twenty, when I got thrown out of college. I did act for about ten years. I don't know. I suspect I'm still a reasonably good actor, but I don't really know that I want to get on the stage again ... and having to say all those boring words by me over and over again ... I don't know if I want to do that. Also, I like a certain amount of freedom of movement, and if you're acting, you're stuck in one place for a long time. Having said that, I will probably be onstage next fall. Edward Albee collegeyearsfall When people don't like the way a play ends, they're likely to blame the play. Edward Albee playpeopleway About four years ago I made a list, for my own amusement, of the playwrights, the contemporary playwrights, by whom critics said I'd been influenced. I listed twenty-five. It included five playwrights whose work I didn't know, so I read these five playwrights and indeed now I suppose I can say I have been influenced by them. The problem is that the people who write these articles find the inevitable similarities of people writing in the same generation, in the same century, and on the same planet, and they put them together in a group. Edward Albee writingpeopleyears The avant-garde theater is fun; it is free-wheeling, bold, iconoclastic, and often wildly, wildly funny. If you will approach it with childlike innocence -- putting your standard responses aside, for they do not apply -- if you will approach it on its own terms, I think you will be in for a liberating surprise. I think you may no longer be content with plays that you can't remember halfway down the block. Edward Albee blockfunthinking I think I sit down to the typewriter when it's time to sit down to the typewriter. That isn't to suggest that when I do finally sit down at the typewriter, and write out my plays with a speed that seems to horrify all my detractors and half of my well-wishers, that there's no work involved. It is hard work, and one is doing all the work oneself. Edward Albee hard-workwritingthinking I have learned that neither kindness or cruelty by themselves, or independent of each other, create any effect beyond themselves. Edward Albee crueltyindependentkindness The health of a nation, a society, can be determined by the art it demands. We have insisted of television and our movies that they not have anything to do with anything, that they be our never-never land; and if we demand this same function of our live theatre, what will be left of the visual-auditory arts - save the dance (in which nobody talks) and music (to which nobody listens)? Edward Albee live-theatrelandart What happens in a play is determined to a certain extent by what I thought might be interesting to have happen before I invented the characters, before they started taking over what happened, because they are three-dimensional individuals, and I cannot tell them what to do. Once I give them their identity and their nature, they start writing the play. Edward Albee playwritingcharacter A playwright, especially a playwright whose work deals very directly with an audience, perhaps he should pay some attention to the nature of the audience response - not necessarily to learn anything about his craft, but as often as not merely to find out about the temper of the time, what is being tolerated, what is being permitted. Edward Albee craftspayattention By some curious mischance, a couple of my plays managed to hit an area where commercial success was feasible. But it's wrong to think I'm a commercial playwright who has somehow ceased his proper function. I have always been the same thing - which is not a commercial playwright. I'm not after the brass ring. Edward Albee coupleplaythinking What people really want in the theater is fantasy involvement and not reality involvement. Edward Albee wantrealitypeople A lot interests me - but nothing surprises me particularly. Edward Albee surprise-mesurpriseinterest First, I'll kill the dog with kindness, and if that doesn't work, I'll just kill him. Edward Albee dogkindnessfirsts There is chaos behind the civility, of course. Edward Albee claritycivilitychaos
