Terrence McNally Quotes
There are so many rules about play writing. I'd have a nervous breakdown if I followed them.
Quotes to Explore
-
Our conscience is not the vessel of eternal verities. It grows with our social life, and a new social condition means a radical change in conscience.
-
I learned so much in Zimbabwe, in particular about the need for humility in our ambition to extend mental health care in countries where there were very few psychiatrists and where the local culture harboured very different views about mental illness and healing. These experiences have profoundly influenced my thinking.
-
I have big hands. I can't do the touch-screen thing. I'm a button guy. I want to press buttons.
-
Control of a company does not carry with it the ability to control the price of its stock.
-
I loathe bad theater and most theatre is very bad because it's repetitious, unexciting and, dangerously, it is sometimes praised for those things.
-
Human faces shouldn't get lost amid the statistics.
-
Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure.
-
The University of South Carolina has always played a role in my life and the intellectual life of South Carolina.
-
I was once an extra in a Bruce Springsteen video where they did a live performance video at Tramps. I forget the name of the song.
-
The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.
-
I don't need fame and I don't need power and I don't need wealth. I'm in need of friends, which I have found in abundance.
-
When I was writing my dissertation, I wrote about Freud and the process of sublimation, which is when you learn to stop breast-feeding, or stop going to the toilet whenever you want to. It's about learning to repress a desire for instant gratification.
-
I try to have fun with the fans, try to have fun.
-
I use to live on this street when I was a kid where there was an old person retirement home, and all of the old people would listen to that band Herman's Hermits, and they would wear white nursing shoes. And they would throw away stacks of VHS tapes, and I would go through the trash and take them.
-
From my side, there was no acceptance to this fact that I am any less than anyone around me. So there was a certain discomfort that I felt growing up that I am not seen as I want to be seen as.
-
Each day, each one of us chooses not to do many things that would be legal but offensive to those around us.
-
I didn't have evil intentions, but I guess I did have power.
-
The world is equally shocked at hearing Christianity criticized and seeing it practiced.
-
I feel like that's what being creative is: It's you bouncing with emotion and what you capture in those bounces. Accept where you are and use it.
-
I feel like I've grown up a bit. I'm a bit more confident, and I've been reading more, and I've had a little more time to myself. I went on this writing trip to gather my thoughts about where and who I am in this world, and why we're all here.
-
I love writing plays because they are living, fluid things that are energised by the producer, designers, musicians, actors and audience.
-
The way that I sort of direct the writers is, let's do the best story we can. Let's not worry about production issues. 'How much will that cost? How are we going to shoot that?' Let's not set up those constraints on the writing. I don't think it helps the project to work like that.
-
My job in 'Motive' is to be the rebellious teenager - what boy wouldn't want to be that?
-
There are so many rules about play writing. I'd have a nervous breakdown if I followed them.
