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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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My parents would have loved it if my brother or I had become a doctor or lawyer.
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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.
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Guys usually know immediately that I'm high-maintenance.
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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.
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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.
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When the bright angel dominates, out comes a great work of art, a Michelangelo David or a Beethoven symphony.
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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.
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I'm a great jazz fan.
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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.
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You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it.
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I've matured as a writer and human being. I've got some wisdom under my belt.
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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.
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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.
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The believing mind is externally impervious to evidence. The most that can be accomplished with it is to induce it to substitute one delusion for another. It rejects all overt evidence as wicked.
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I don't want to play out of another man's bag.
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I’ll leave a note to the rector of the cathedral and remind him that a woman gave him birth. Something for him to think about the next time he gives one of his sermons. I’m writing all this down.
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This was the Mecca of the American Dream, the world that everyone wanted. A world of sleek young women (allied with Slenderella to be so) in shorts and halters, driving 400-horsepower station wagons to air-conditioned, music-serenaded supermarkets of baby-sitter corporations and culture condensed into Great Books discussion groups. A life of barbecues by the swimming pool and drive in movies open all year. It did't appeal to me. Fuck health insurance plans and life insurance. They wanted to live without leaving the womb. It made me more alive to play a game without rules against society, and I was prepared to play it to the end. A tremor almost sexual passed through me as I anticipated the comming robbery.
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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.
