Terrence McNally Quotes
Work with good directors. Without them your play is doomed. At the time of my first play, I thought a good director was someone who liked my play. I was rudely awakened from that fantasy when he directed it as if he loathed it. . . . Work with good actors. A good actor hears the way you (and no one else) write. A good actor makes rewrites easy. A good actor tells you things about your play you didn't know.
Quotes to Explore
-
There are people who think I should be using the position of secretary of state simply to weigh the scales on the side of my own party. I just don't accept that, and it would not be proper.
-
The more of what our music does violates the premise of its format that it's presented in, the better. So, hearing our music in the supermarket, a Muzak version, is great.
-
Soviet expansionism in Europe, the battle for control of China, and the 1950 invasion of South Korea would shatter once-euphoric dreams of post-war cooperation with the Kremlin.
-
I didn't learn to read until I was almost 14 years old. Reading out loud for me was a nightmare because I would mispronounce words or reconstruct things that weren't even there. That's when one of my teachers discovered I had a learning disability called dyslexia. Once I got help, I read very well!
-
The surveillance of ordinary people is far greater than I would have imagined and far greater than the American public has been able to debate.
-
My parents would have loved it if my brother or I had become a doctor or lawyer.
-
Kids should speak to each other. They're horrid to each other online, they bully each other - they should shut up and stop it. The problem with social media is there is too much freedom. It's too much, too young.
-
Guys usually know immediately that I'm high-maintenance.
-
I get used to my fountain pens and my clothes, and I can never throw them away. I replace them only when I see that they are broken or embarrassing to wear.
-
I like writing people from a slightly sharp angle and then throwing more light on them. I think in life we see somebody and make judgments very quickly about who they are and what they are. Or we think people are boring because they appear ordinary.
-
When the bright angel dominates, out comes a great work of art, a Michelangelo David or a Beethoven symphony.
-
Despite all the media coverage, glitz and glam of hedge funds, they have not done well for their investors. They have high - some say excessively high - fees; their short- and long-term performance has been poor.
-
I'm a great jazz fan.
-
I'm realistic about my career as a novelist. I'm certainly not a superstar and far, far from a household name, but I feel successful.
-
You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it.
-
I've matured as a writer and human being. I've got some wisdom under my belt.
-
I don't want to write a novel per year. I know that I need a break of one or two years. So maybe I invent some new, urgent activity so I don't fall into the trap of starting a new novel.
-
As an American Jew who loves Israel, I cannot support John McCain. He cannot provide what Israel needs most - a respected, credible, morally strong America.
-
You can't start a movie by having the attitude that the script is finished, because if you think the script is finished, your movie is finished before the first day of shooting.
-
Getting lost was not a matter of geography so much as identity, a passionate desire, even an urgent need, to become no one and anyone, to shake off the shackles that remind you who you are, who others think you are.
-
I still like to sit in a room and play games all day, so I'm a kid, really.
-
Every team we play is a rivalry in a sense, because you try to win every game. That's what it's all about. Who knows who came up with this rivalry?
-
We are slowed down sound and light waves, a walking bundle of frequencies tuned into the cosmos. We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.
-
Work with good directors. Without them your play is doomed. At the time of my first play, I thought a good director was someone who liked my play. I was rudely awakened from that fantasy when he directed it as if he loathed it. . . . Work with good actors. A good actor hears the way you (and no one else) write. A good actor makes rewrites easy. A good actor tells you things about your play you didn't know.
