Playwright Quotes

Men of vision. Oh, I love the fine names men give each other to hide their greed and lust for adventure.

You must not demand the failure of your peers, because the more good things that are around in film, in television, in theater - why the better it is for all of us.

The whole point of writing is to have something in your gut or in your soul or in your mind that's burning to be written.

The man who has everything figured out is probably a fool.

The aftermath of the war is what inspired us to write many of our plays. The whole reason for our writing Inherit the Wind was that we were appalled at the blacklisting. We were appalled at thought control.

Our only competition in the theater is boredom, because if I'm bored with a play, if I'm revolted by a play on stage, with the Broadway prices, especially today, I'm going to walk out and not come back and pay that price again.

In no instance is there to be a musical or opera of Inherit the Wind because it doesn't sing. It's an intellectual play.

If you're going to make a musical, don't cartoon it from the play. Make it better than the play. Have a reason for making it sing.

I think enthusiasm is the answer to passionate writing.

All experience helps when you write.

A play is a passion.

It's always such a joy that you wake up in the morning and there's work to do.

A neurotic is a man who builds a castle in the air. A psychotic is the man who lives in it. A psychiatrist is the man who collects the rent.

That was all and it was enough for me: fantasies are better left fantasies.

Psychoanalysts and elephants, they never forget.

When the grandmothers of today hear the word 'Chippendales,' they don't necessary think of chairs.

The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling just plain terrible.

Now the thing about having a baby - and I can't be the first person to have noticed this - is that thereafter you have it.

Man is the only animal that learns by being hypocritical. He pretends to be polite and then, eventually, he becomes polite.

I think success has no rules, but you can learn a great deal from failure.

I make mistakes; I'll be the second to admit it.

I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me that they are wonderful things for other people to go on.

Even though a number of people have tried, no one has ever found a way to drink for a living.

You don't seem to realize that a poor person who is unhappy is in a better position than a rich person who is unhappy. Because the poor person has hope. He thinks money would help.

One of the most difficult things to contend with in a hospital is that assumption on the part of the staff that because you have lost your gall bladder you have also lost your mind.

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it's just possible you haven't grasped the situation.

Hope is the feeling that the feeling you have isn't permanent.

A man speaks only when driven to speech by something outside himself - like, for instance, he can't find any clean socks.

I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being skin deep. That's deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas?

Women speak because they wish to speak, whereas a man speaks only when driven to speak by something outside himself like, for instance, he can't find any clean socks.