Sam Shepard Quotes
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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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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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I don't belong much anywhere.
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What I'm after is something different than supplying people with the idea that I'm writing an important play.
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Film acting is really the trick of doing moments. You rarely do a take that lasts more than 20 seconds. You really earn your spurs acting onstage. I needed to do that for myself. I would hate to say at the end of everything that I never did a stage play.
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I remember, as a kid, going into other people's houses. Everything was different. The smells in the kitchen were different; the clothing was different. That bothered me. There's something very mysterious about other families and the way they function.
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I don't attend costume parties.
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I keep my horses out in the open, but when I was working the ranches, I had to clean the stalls. It was a horrible job.
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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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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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When I first started, I didn't really know how to structure a play.
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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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I'm extremely grateful that I found writing, but it doesn't make it any more peaceful.
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Film is anti-language.
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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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When I was a kid, we didn't have a TV until the late '50s, but I can remember watching Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Steve McQueen, and 'Gunsmoke.'
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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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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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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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Men lie all the time.
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It's funny, in a way the actor is a writer. It's not like the two things are so separate as to be like apples and oranges. The writer and the actor are one.
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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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I think comedy's harder to pull off on the screen than on the stage, anyway. Tragedy is easier on the screen... oddly enough.