Alistair Beaton Quotes
Theatre can entertain, provoke, challenge, investigate, comfort and educate. It's arrogant of a playwright to think education is more important than anything else. Writing for the theatre does not give you permission to lecture, hector or bore.
Quotes to Explore
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All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.
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I started submitting stories for publication when I was about 15, but it was many years before I sold anything. I don't make my living writing science fiction, so in that sense, I'm still not a pro.
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The last time I had to make a career decision, I was 17. I could have gone to Ballet Theatre or National Ballet of Canada. There were options. But as I became exposed to the Robbins repertoire, I realized that there was a living genius in the house.
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I think that the idea that I'm writing for many more people than I ever imagined has created a certain general responsibility that is literary and political. There's even pride involved, in not wanting to fall short of what I did before.
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One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.
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Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.
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I've done loads of things people have never seen - dramas on BBC4 and plays upstairs at the Royal Court and the Bush - and because I didn't go to drama school, they gave me an education.
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I used to be one of the lead actors of a theatre group called Hetu when I was in medical school. Prithvi Theatre was our stomping ground. I'd got many positive reviews.
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The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.
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Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.
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If you want to bring down the prices of healthcare and education, the answer will be more innovation, more technology, which will then have the effect of freaking everybody out and saying, 'Oh, my God, you're going to kill all the jobs.'
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Writing is a form of licensed madness.
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On a very personal level, I have fond memories of spending a lot of time in the Library of Congress working on my collection of poems 'Native Guard.' I was there over a summer doing research in the archives and then writing in the reading room at the Jefferson building.
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By and large, the critics and readers gave me an affirmed sense of my identity as a writer. You might know this within yourself, but to have it affirmed by others is of utmost importance. Writing is, after all, a form of communication.
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I went to school to study literature and writing, even though I didn't end up really doing that in the end.
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I hope the wonder of what happens to my characters never goes away. That yearning keeps me writing.
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Of course I knew that writing was terrifically hard work and that there was no secret code, as in a video game, that would unlock Tolstoy-mode, enabling me to crank out canon-worthy novellas before lunch.
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I think the musicians I play with solo do a certain thing that the musicians we play with with the Indigo Girls don't do. It's just a different thing. And it sort of steers my writing in some ways.
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Our alliances should be understood as a means to expand our influence, not as a constraint on our power. The expansion of democracy and freedom in the world should be a shared interest and value with all nations.
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I wouldn't mind spending six months a year having a private jet take me around the world to visit natural and historical landmarks like the Egyptian pyramids, Mount Kilimanjaro or the Taj Mahal.
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Let go of offence. Let go of fear. Let go of revenge. Don't live angry, let go now!
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It is not necessary to maintain a conversation when we are in the presence of God. We can come into His presence and rest our weary souls in quiet contemplation of Him. Our groanings, which cannot be uttered, rise to Him and tell Him better than words how dependent we are upon Him.
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One special advantage of the skeptical attitude of mind is that a man is never vexed to find that after all he has been in the wrong.
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Theatre can entertain, provoke, challenge, investigate, comfort and educate. It's arrogant of a playwright to think education is more important than anything else. Writing for the theatre does not give you permission to lecture, hector or bore.
