Quotessence
Home / Authors / Edward Albee
Edward Albee

Edward Albee Quotes

Playwright

Filter quotes by topic

AllPlayWritingIfsThinkingPeoplePlaywrightKnowsArtWantCriticsCharacterShouldYearsWellsSeemsRealityEndsTheaterTheatreTwo

Famous Edward Albee Quotes

“A playwright, especially a playwright whose work deals very directly with an audience, perhaps he should pay some attention to the nature of the audience response - not necessarily to learn anything about his craft, but as often as not merely to find out about the temper of the time, what is being tolerated, what is being permitted.”

ShouldDealsPayAttentionAudienceResponseCraftsTemperPlaywright
Book:Conversations with Edward Albee
Create image

“There's always the danger that there are so damn many things that a playwright can examine in this society of ours - things that have less to do with his artistic work than have to do with the critical and aesthetic environment - that perhaps he does have to worry about whether or not he is writing too fast. But then also, perhaps he should worry about getting as many plays on as possible before the inevitable ax falls.”

ShouldWritingDoePlayFallWorryEnvironmentDangerCriticalArtisticInevitableDamnAestheticPlaywrightThis Society
Author:Edward Albee
Create image

“If you examine the history of any playwright of the past twenty - five or thirty years - I'm not talking about the comedy boys, I'm talking about the more serious writers - it seems inevitable that almost every one has been encouraged until the critics feel that they have built them up beyond the point where they can control them; then it's time to knock them down again.”

IfsFeelsYearsHas BeensSeemsPastTalkingBoysFiveComedySeriousBuiltTwentiesCriticsInevitableThirtyPlaywrightThirty YearsNot TalkingTwenty Five
Book:Conversations with Edward Albee
Create image

“A rather ugly thing starts happening: the playwright finds himself knocked down for works that quite often are just as good or better than the works he's been praised for previously. And a lot of playwrights become confused by this and they start doing imitations of what they've done before, or they try to do something entirely different, in which case they get accused by the same critics of not doing what they used to do so well.”

TryingWellsDifferentDoneUsedCasesHappeningsCriticsUglyConfusedImitationAccusedPlaywrightKnocked DownUgly Things
Book:Conversations with Edward Albee
Create image

“About four years ago I made a list, for my own amusement, of the playwrights, the contemporary playwrights, by whom critics said I'd been influenced. I listed twenty-five. It included five playwrights whose work I didn't know, so I read these five playwrights and indeed now I suppose I can say I have been influenced by them. The problem is that the people who write these articles find the inevitable similarities of people writing in the same generation, in the same century, and on the same planet, and they put them together in a group.”

PeopleKnowsWritingYearsHas BeensMadeSaidI CanProblemTogetherMy OwnFiveFourGenerationsGroupsCenturyPlanetsYears AgoTwentiesCriticsListsContemporaryInevitableArticlesFour YearsAmusementPlaywrightSimilarityTwenty Five
Author:Edward Albee
Create image

“In the thirties a whole school of criticism bogged down intellectually in those agitprop, social-realistic days. A play had to be progressive. A number of plays by playwrights who were thought very highly of then - they were very bad playwrights - were highly praised because their themes were intellectually and politically proper. This intellectual morass is very dangerous, it seems to me. A form of censorship.”

PlayWholeSeemsSchoolFormSocialNumbersDangerousIntellectualCriticismThemeProgressiveRealisticCensorshipPlaywright
Book:Conversations with Edward Albee
Create image

“I know playwrights who like to kid themselves into saying that their characters are so well formed that they just take over. They determine the structure of the play. By which is meant, I suspect, only that the unconscious mind has done its work so thoroughly that the play just has to be filtered through the conscious mind. But there's work to be done - and discovery to be made.”

KnowsMindWellsMadeDonePlayCharacterKidsConsciousDiscoveryStructureDetermineUnconsciousSuspectsPlaywrightUnconscious MindConscious MindWork To Be Done
Book:Conversations with Edward Albee
Create image

“There are two things that a playwright can have. Success or failure. I imagine there are dangers in both. Certainly the danger of being faced with indifference or hostility is discouraging, and it may be that success - acceptance if it's too quick, too lightning-quick - can turn the heads of some people.”

PeopleIfsMayTwoTurnsImagineDangerAcceptanceIndifferenceTwo ThingsLightningHostilityPlaywrightDiscouragingSuccess Or Failure
Book:Conversations with Edward Albee
Create image