You can't make a living as a playwright. You can barely scrape by. Sam Shepard More Quotes by Sam Shepard More Quotes From Sam Shepard I think without writing I would feel completely useless. Sam Shepard useless writing thinking The words I overuse are all adverbs. Sam Shepard adverbs There's gonna be a general lack of toast in the neighborhood this morning. Sam Shepard toasts neighborhood morning The California I knew, old rancho California, is gone. It just doesn't exist, except maybe in little pockets. I lived on the edge of the Mojave Desert, an area that used to be farm country. There were all these fresh-produce stands with avocados and date palms. You could get a dozen artichokes for a buck or something. Totally wiped out now. Sam Shepard dozen california country I still haven't gotten over this thing of walking down the street and somebody recognizing you because you've been in a movie. There's this illusion that movie stars only exist in the movies. And to see one live is like seeing a leopard let out of the zoo. Sam Shepard leopards stars zoos All that stuff about my father and my childhood is interesting up to a certain point, but I kind of capsized with the family drama a long time ago. Now I want to get away from that. Not that I won't return to it, but a certain element has been exhausted, and it feels like why regurgitate all this stuff? Sam Shepard drama father interesting Film acting is really the trick of doing moments. You rarely do a take that lasts more than 20 seconds. You really earn your spurs acting onstage. I needed to do that for myself. I would hate to say at the end of everything that I never did a stage play. Sam Shepard hate acting play I feel very lucky and privileged to be a writer. I feel lucky in the sense that I can branch out into prose and tell different kinds of stories and stuff. But being a writer is so great because youre literally not dependent on anybody. Sam Shepard lucky different stories I got to New York when I was eighteen. I was knocking around, trying to be an actor, writer, musician, whatever happened. Sam Shepard actors new-york trying I don't want to be a playwright, I want to be a rock and roll star. Sam Shepard rock-and-roll rocks stars When you see the way things deteriorate before your very eyes. Everything running down hill. It's kind of silly to even think about youth. Sam Shepard eye silly running I've come to feel that if I can't make something happen in under an hour and a half, it's not going to happen in a compelling way in a three-hour play. Sam Shepard three half play Sides are being divided now. It's very obvious. So if you're on the other side of the fence, you're suddenly anti-American. It's breeding fear of being on the wrong side. Sam Shepard breeding fence sides To sing a song is quite different than to write a poem. I'm not and never will be a novelist, but to write a novel is not the same thing as writing a play. There is a difference in form, but essentially what you're after is the same thing. Sam Shepard play writing song In many of my plays, there was a kind of autobiographical character in the form of a son or young man. The purpose of it, of course, was to write about myself. That character was always the least fully realized. Eighteen years later, you realize, That's what he was about. Sam Shepard writing character son When you consider all the writers who never even had a machine. Who would have given an eyeball for a good typewriter. Any typewriter. All the ones who wrote on a matchbook covers. Paper bags. Toilet paper. Who had their writing destroyed by their jailers. Who persisted beyond all odds. Sam Shepard odds typewriters writing Hollywood is geared toward teenage idiocy. Sam Shepard idiocy teenage hollywood I don't understand my feelings. I really don't. I don't understand how I could hate you so much after so much time. How, no matter how much I'd like to not hate you, I hate you even more. It grows. Sam Shepard hate matter feelings I was in the war. I know how to kill. I was over there. I know how to do it. I've done it before. It's no big deal. You just make an adjustment. You convince yourself it's all right. That's all. It's easy. You just slaughter them. Sam Shepard murder done war [Rewriting is] a whole other art form; it's about craftsmanship. Sam Shepard crafts writing art
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