Terrence McNally Quotes

Whenever you think you're writing what other people want to hear from you, and that it'll be commercial, you're doomed to disaster. Writing has to be as truthful and specific as we can make it. The minute we think that we're reaching more people and pleasing them, we get general. And audiences sense that and turn away, shun us.

Terrence McNally

• Writing
• Hear
• Truthful

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• I firmly believe that one of the best kept secrets to soft and glowing skin is moisturisation.

  

  Nargis Fakhri
  • Believe
  • Best
  • Secrets

• 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.

  

  Vikram Patel
  • Different
  • Thinking
  • Culture

• There are no opportune times for a penalty, and this is not one of those times.

  

  Jack Youngblood
  • Times
  • Penalty
  • Those

• During my childhood, I was surrounded by actors, and all I remember is they were fun to be around. That kind of sticks.

  

  Jack Davenport
  • Remember
  • Fun
  • Childhood

• There's no smarter politician out there than Bill Clinton.

  

  Ed Rollins
  • Politician
  • Out
  • Smarter

• There is no peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.

  

  Daniel Berrigan
  • War
  • Death
  • Peace

• I'm not a walking extra in a Chekhov play; I'm no Slavic gloom or Irish gloom.

  

  Orson Welles
  • Play
  • Walking
  • Irish

• I've definitely become smuttier. When I first started out, I had these aspirations: 'I'm not going to do jokes about anything crude because I'm bigger and better than that.' But then, I don't know... It makes me laugh, so I started doing it.

  

  Jack Whitehall
  • Me
  • Laugh
  • Jokes

• The ideas and practices of Franz Anton Mesmer, an 18th-century Australian healer, had spread to the United States and, by the 1840s, held the country in thrall. Mesmer proposed that everything in the universe, including the human body, was governed by a 'magnetic fluid' that could become imbalanced, causing illness.

  

  Karen Abbott
  • Country
  • Universe
  • Ideas

• One must learn to love, and go through a good deal of suffering to get to it... and the journey is always towards the other soul.

  

  D. H. Lawrence
  • Love
  • Soul
  • Learn

• You know, my mum's always encouraged me and never made my gender an issue, I guess. She brought me up to believe in equality, as opposed to feminism or sexism – so it just meant that my gender was not relevant to what I was capable of achieving.

  

  Paloma Faith
  • Believe
  • Know
  • Equality

• As long as we set up equality, we'll go in the right direction.

  

  Venus Williams
  • Up
  • Long
  • Equality

• We live in a democracy, and people are free to sometimes choose the wrong leader.

  

  Rand Paul
  • People
  • Live
  • Free

• I love Evian face spray because it's a really easy way to just freshen up your face, especially if you're traveling on an airplane - I get really dry on airplanes.

  

  Olivia Culpo
  • Face
  • Traveling
  • Especially

• Hip-hop for me has always been hardcore and edgy.

  

  Yelawolf
  • Me
  • Always
  • Hip Hop

• I have never believed that the critic is the rival of the poet, but I do believe that criticism is a genre of literature or it does not exist.

  

  Harold Bloom
  • Believe
  • Never
  • Literature

• When you're an entertainer, it's hard not to compare yourself with the next person's success. But you have to trust your own journey and your strengths and believe in yourself. I think that's the best place to start.

  

  Kat Graham
  • Believe
  • Success
  • Trust

• If I write the song, I get to name it.

  

  Britt Daniel
  • Song

• If I fell down and hurt myself, I never cried. There was no one to hear me.

  

  Louise Fletcher
  • Hurt

• Long Kiss Goodnight has a huge cult following. They could make another version of that movie right now and make a lot of money.

  

  Samuel L. Jackson
  • Long
  • Money
  • Movie

• It's the typical mid-life crisis kind of thing, where you just stop and wonder, 'Should I go back to university and get a law degree?' I kind of looked around me and thought, 'What kind of idiot am I that I've just spent the last 10 years writing novels? Financially, I'm pretty much where I was when I was 28.'

  

  Lynn Coady
  • Life
  • Writing
  • Pretty

• I want to start recording and writing as soon as I can and get music that I love out as soon as possible.

  

  Brynn Cartelli
  • Music
  • Writing

• I always knew I was going to do something with music, but with my whole family being in the business, acting was something that was just mine. But when I was 20 or 21, I started writing songs and felt the itch to make a record.

  

  Aubrie Sellers
  • Music
  • Writing
  • Family

• Whenever you think you're writing what other people want to hear from you, and that it'll be commercial, you're doomed to disaster. Writing has to be as truthful and specific as we can make it. The minute we think that we're reaching more people and pleasing them, we get general. And audiences sense that and turn away, shun us.

  

  Terrence McNally
  • Writing
  • Hear
  • Truthful