Why we are here is an impenetrable question. Edward Albee More Quotes by Edward Albee More Quotes From Edward Albee Martha: Oh, I like your anger. I think that's what I like about you most. Your anger. Edward Albee thinking I find relatively little relationship between the work of art and the immediate critical response it gets. Edward Albee response littles art Audiences and, to a large extent, critics who want less from theater than it is possible for it to give. If everybody's encouraged to want less, you'll end up with less. Edward Albee ends want giving It always seems to me better to slough off the answer to a question that I consider to be a terrible invasion of privacy - the kind of privacy that a writer must keep for himself. Edward Albee invasion privacy answers When people can't abide things as they are, when they can't abide the present, they do one of two things ... either they ... either they turn to a contemplation of the past ... or they set about to ... alter the future. And when you want to change something ... YOU BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! Edward Albee change two past I discover that I am thinking about a play, which is the first awareness I have that a new play is forming. When I'm aware of the play forming in my head, it's already at a certain degree in development. Edward Albee degrees play thinking I am a Doctor. A.B... M.A... PH.D... ABMAPHID! Abmaphid has been variously described as a wasting disease of the frontal lobes, and as a wonder drug. It is actually both. Edward Albee doctors drug disease Unless you are terribly, terribly careful, you run the danger-- without even knowing it is happening to you-- of slipping into the fatal error of reflecting the public taste instead of creating it. Your responsibility is to the public consciousness, not to the public view of itself. Edward Albee errors responsibility running Within a year after I write a play I forget the experience of having written it. And I couldn't revise or rewrite it if I wanted to. Up until that point, I'm so involved with the experience of having written the play, and the nature of it, that I can't see what faults it might have. The only moment of clear objectivity that I can find is at the moment of critical heat - of self-critical heat when I'm actually writing. Edward Albee objectivity self writing The responsibility of the writer is to be a sort of demonic social critic -- to present the world and people in it as he sees it and say, "Do you like it? If you don't like it, change it. Edward Albee responsibility writing people Dashed hopes and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested. Edward Albee good-intentions intention When a critic sets himself up as an arbiter of morality, a judge of the matter and not the manner of a work, he is no longer a critic; he is a censor. Edward Albee morality judging matter Every monster was a man first. Edward Albee monsters men firsts I am pleased and reassured by the fact that a lot of younger playwrights seem to pay me some attention and gain some nourishment from what I do. Edward Albee gains pay attention A writer is a controlled schizophrenic. Edward Albee schizophrenic controlled I don't feel that catharsis in a play necessarily takes place during the course of a play. Often it should take place afterward. Edward Albee catharsis should play One has always got to be terribly careful, since the theater is made up of a whole bunch of prima donnas, not to let the distortions occur. Edward Albee distortion theater made Writing has got to be an act of discovery....I write to find out what I'm thinking about. Edward Albee writing discovery thinking I know playwrights who like to kid themselves into saying that their characters are so well formed that they just take over. They determine the structure of the play. By which is meant, I suspect, only that the unconscious mind has done its work so thoroughly that the play just has to be filtered through the conscious mind. But there's work to be done - and discovery to be made. Edward Albee discovery character kids When one controls form, one doesn't do it with a stopwatch or a graph. One does it by sensing, again intuitively. Edward Albee graphs form doe
