Sam Shepard Quotes
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A good actor always sets you straight. If you've written a false moment and thought it was probably pretty great, the actor's gonna show you when he gets to that moment. They're the great test of the validity of the material.
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I'm not put off so much by first-time directors if the script is great. If the script isn't there, I'm not there.
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You don't have to do anything in the movies. You just sit there. Well, that's not entirely true. You do less.
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I see a lot of scripts, and very few of them leap off the page at you.
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I try not to be in situations where I'm being grabbed at. For the most part, you can avoid them.
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The thing about American writers is that, as a group, they get stuck in the same idea: that we're a continent and the world falls away after us. And it's just nonsense.
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There are places where writing is acting and acting is writing. I'm not so interested in the divisions. I'm interested in the way things cross over.
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My dad had a lot of bad luck. You could see his suffering, his terrible suffering, living a life that was disappointing and looking for another one.
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I've been into horses as far back as I can remember. There is a particular kind here in America called the 'quarter horse' that I'm very interested in.
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My father had a real short fuse. He had a tough life - had to support his mother and brother at a very young age when his dad's farm collapsed. You could see his suffering, his terrible suffering, living a life that was disappointing and looking for another one. My father was full of terrifying anger.
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Dialogue is like jazz. Dialogue is creative.
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On stage, you're not limited at all because you're free in language: language is the source of the imagination. You can travel farther in language than you can in any film.
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For me, playwriting is and has always been like making a chair. Your concerns are balance, form, timing, lights, space, music. If you don't have these essentials, you might as well be writing a theoretical essay, not a play.
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I keep endlessly busy with all kinds of stuff, mostly horses, cattle, livestock, things like that.
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I think Bolano had a generosity about him that was unique. He seemed to include so many people in the circle of his adventures, whereas I felt like I was pretty selfish.
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I didn't go out of my way to get into this movie stuff. I think of myself as a writer.
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They say TV has a tendency to diminish actors, and I think that's probably true in the long run - it wears on 'em like bad dental work - but Cheech doesn't show any of the signs of being damaged that way. And as a man, he's fantastic.
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I'm inhabiting a life I'm not supposed to be in... and at certain times in my life, I have felt a wrongness. And not a moral wrongness but a sense that this isn't what I was born to be doing.
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I'm not in demand. I'm all washed up.
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I still find it hard to believe that the whole era of jazz is over.
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I was shot in the wrist when I was a kid. Deliberately.
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I wrote 'Buried Child' in a trailer at an old ranch house we had in California.
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I've always found it embarrassing to receive awards.
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I've had it up to my ears with the personal mythology. It's getting kind of personally sickening. The personal stuff just turns out to be misinterpreted. I've had such an earful for so long, it's gotten tedious. I figure if you stay away from it, you're safe.