Sam Shepard Quotes
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I'm extremely grateful that I found writing, but it doesn't make it any more peaceful.
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Writing for the theatre is so different to writing for anything else. Because what you write is eventually going to be spoken. That's why I think so many really powerful novelists can't write a play - because they don't understand that it's spoken - that it hits the air. They don't get that.
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To sit on a ranch horse that's been broken in, it's like getting in a Porsche.
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If you start trying to figure out yourself from the image everyone has of you, you run into a dead end.
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Film is anti-language.
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All of the great writers whom I admire have died. I guess the most recent one would be Marquez.
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I've been so spoiled in the theater, writing plays where I can just do exactly what I want and nobody messes with me.
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There's no way to escape the fact that we've grown up in a violent culture, we just can't get away from it, it's part of our heritage. I think part of it is that we've always felt somewhat helpless in the face of this vast continent. Helplessness is answered in many ways, but one of them is violence.
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I'm still very much a believer in the spontaneity of certain kinds of writing. But then you have to eventually, when you're writing a long play, make adjustments along the way - all kinds of adjustments.
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I don't attend costume parties.
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My old man tried to force on me a notion of what it was to be a 'man.' And it destroyed my dad.
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Sides are being divided now. It's very obvious. So if you're on the other side of the fence, you're suddenly anti-American. It's breeding fear of being on the wrong side.
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I feel like the writers that I'm drawn to, the writers that I really cling to, are the writers who seem to be writing out of a desperate act. It's like their writing is part of a survival kit. Those are the writers that I just absolutely cherish and carry with me everywhere I go.
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Why would you want to be be counseled in your grief? It's too private.
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I love Levon Helm - he's one of my favorite guys.
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I think without writing I would feel completely useless.
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After the falling out with my father, I worked on a couple of ranches - thoroughbred layup farms, actually - out toward Chino, California. That was fine for a little while, but I wanted to get out completely, and twenty miles away wasn't far enough.
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I had two experiences with very close friends of mine who experienced aphasia, the loss of language. It shocked me.
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Hollywood is geared toward teenage idiocy.
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I feel like I've never had a home, you know? I feel related to the country, to this country, and yet I don't know exactly where I fit in... There's always this kind of nostalgia for a place, a place where you can reckon with yourself.
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I'm a writer. The more I act, the more resistance I have to it. If you accept work in a movie, you accept to be entrapped for a certain part of time, but you know you're getting out. I'm also earning enough to keep my horses, buying some time to write.
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People are starved for the truth, and when something comes along that even looks like the truth, people will latch onto it because everything's so false.
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My son, Walker, has a band called The Dust Busters. You know, he plays banjo, fiddle, guitar, and mandolin, so a lot of my interest in that kind of music comes from him constantly listening to this stuff. He's taught me the history of it. It's remarkable how these young kids are now turned on to more traditional old-time music.
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To me, a strong sense of self isn't believing in a lot.