Home / Authors / Sarah Ruhl Books

Sarah Ruhl

Sarah Ruhl Books

Playwright

Sarah Ruhl is an American playwright known for her unique narrative style and profound insights into human emotions. Her works cover a range of themes, including family, love, death, and religion. Ruhl's plays have been performed in numerous theaters and have won multiple awards.

100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write:...

A source page for quotes linked to Sarah Ruhl.

0 quotes

In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play

A source page for quotes linked to Sarah Ruhl.

0 quotes

The Clean House and Other Plays

A source page for quotes linked to Sarah Ruhl.

0 quotes

The Oldest Boy: A Play in Three Ceremonies

A source page for quotes linked to Sarah Ruhl.

0 quotes

Eurydice

A source page for quotes linked to Sarah Ruhl.

0 quotes

The Clean House

A source page for quotes linked to Sarah Ruhl.

0 quotes

Related Quotes

“There’s a word in Japanese for being sad in the springtime – a whole word for just being sad – about how pretty the flowers are and how soon they’re going to die.” — Sarah Ruhl”

Sadness Flowers Japanese Sarah Ruhl

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“That is why they have poets—to classify all the degrees of love. It is for scientists to classify the maladies arising from the want of it.”

Love Science Poetry Poets Scientists Malady Classify Maladies

Book:In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play

Source: In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play

“Do you think we make sad things into songs in order to hold on to the sadness or to banish it—I think it is to banish the sadness. So then if you write a happy song, is it not sadder than a sad song because by making it you have banished your own happiness into a song?”

Happiness Song Sadness Sad Happy Banish

Book:In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play

Source: In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play

“Every day as I wave to my children when I drop them off at school, or let one of them have a new experience—like crossing the street without holding my hand—I experience the struggle between love and non-attachment. It is hard to bear—the extreme love of one’s child and the thought that ultimately the child belongs to the world. There is this horrible design flaw—children are supposed to grow up and away from you; and one of you will die first.”

World Love Children Struggle Design Experience Horrible Die New Grow Up Flaw Extreme Non Attachment

Book:The Oldest Boy: A Play in Three Ceremonies

Source: The Oldest Boy: A Play in Three Ceremonies

“Don't make a wall of glass between your play and the people watching. Don't forget they were once children, who enjoyed being read to, or sung to sleep.”

Children Theatre Playwriting Fourth Wall Audiences

Book:100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater

Source: 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater

“I wonder how it is that we are all connected despite our tremendous differences.”

Differences Wonder Connected Tremendous

Book:The Oldest Boy: A Play in Three Ceremonies

Source: The Oldest Boy: A Play in Three Ceremonies

“Motherhood is a predicament. How to live fully inside of it with any grace?”

Grace Motherhood Live Inside Fully Predicament

Book:The Oldest Boy: A Play in Three Ceremonies

Source: The Oldest Boy: A Play in Three Ceremonies

“You say a prayer, Virginia. A prayer cleans the air the way water cleans the dirt.”

Power Of Prayer

Book:The Clean House

Source: The Clean House

“the theater is one of the few places left in the bright and noisy world where we sit in the quiet dark together, to be awake.”

Theater Theatre Theatre Life Sarah Ruhl

Book:100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater

Source: 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater

“The importance of knowing nothing is underrated.”

What Is Important

Book:100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater

Source: 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater

“She has a quiet paroxysm. Now remember that these are the days before digital pornography. There is no cliché of how women are supposed to orgasm, no idea in their heads of how they are supposed to sound when they climax. Mrs. Daldry’s first orgasms could be very quiet, organic, awkward, primal. Or very clinical. Or embarrassingly natural. But whatever it is, it should not be a cliché, a camp version of how we expect all women sound when they orgasm. It is simply clear that she has had some kind of release.”

Pornography Orgasm Cliché Paroxysm

Book:In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play

Source: In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play

“the theater is one of the few places left in the bright and noisy world where we sit in the quiet dark together, to be awake." Ruhl, Sarah. 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater (p. 103). Faber & Faber. Kindle Edition.”

Theater Theatre Theatre Life

Book:100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater

Source: 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater

“I have loved enough women to know how to paint. If I had loved fewer, I would be an illustrator; if I had loved more, I would be a poet.”

Love Women Poet Painter Illustrator

Book:In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play

Source: In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play

“I try to interpret how people subjectively experience life. Everyone has a great, horrible opera inside him. I feel that my plays, in a way, are very old-fashioned. They’re pre-Freudian in the sense that the Greeks and Shakespeare worked with similar assumptions. Catharsis isn’t a wound being excavated from childhood.”

People Way Feels Trying Play Childhood Wounds Horrible Greek Assumption Opera Old Fashioned Catharsis

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“Have you ever been so melancholy, that you wanted to fit in the palm of your beloved's hand? And lie there, for fortnights, or decades, or the length of time between stars? In complete silence?”

Hands Wanted Lying Stars Silence Sadness Fit Decades Beloved Length Melancholy Palms Playwright Fitting Fortnight

Book:The Clean House and Other Plays

Source: The Clean House and Other Plays

“There's a word in Japanese for being sad in the springtime - a whole word for just being sad - about how pretty the flowers are and how soon they're going to die.”

Whole Dies Flower Just Being Springtime Being Sad

Book:The Clean House and Other Plays

Source: The Clean House and Other Plays

“Theatre is, at its roots, some very brave people mutually consenting to a make believe world, with nothing but language to rest on.”

People World Believe Language Roots Brave Theatre Make Believe

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“Attachment parenting is this theory that if you wear your baby around and you sleep with your baby and you breast-feed for a long time, the baby will be more attached to you.”

Ifs Long Sleep Theory Baby Long Time Breasts Attachment Attachment Parenting

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“A multivalent culture is an amazing place to be writing theatre.”

Writing Culture Theatre Amazing Places

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“In America I think it's much more full of disruption culturally; it's much more mysterious how we inherit culture here. We grab it where we can find it - we're insatiable - and there can be a sense here that it's not available to you as readily as it is in other cultures.”

Thinking America Culture Available Mysterious Disruption Insatiable Other Cultures

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“I used to paint and I used to draw, and I probably would have loved to have been a portrait painter if I'd been good enough, but I really wasn't good enough.”

Ifs Has Beens Enough Used Draws Paint Painter Good Enough Portraits

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“I think theatre is a democratic act and I think writing a play is not a democratic act. I think we should give writers more leeway and space to write the thing they want to write, and then we should produce the play, multiple times, and let them re-write it.”

Thinking Want Giving Should Writing Play Space Produce Democratic Theatre Multiple

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“What I really value about being a writer is that I can go to rehearsal when I want to, and then, when I need to be at home writing or with my kids, I go home.”

Want Needs Writing I Can Home Kids Values Rehearsal

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“The director was only invented in the nineteenth century. So directors have only been around for 200 year,s and playwrights have been around since Sophocles and Euripides.”

Years Has Beens Century Directors Playwright Nineteenth Century

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“I do think there's a relationship between a book and a reader that's more intimate, in many ways, than the relationship between an audience member and a play - just by the nature of it being an object that you can have in bed with you and that you can keep and page through.”

Thinking Way Book Play Audience Objects Reader Bed Members Pages Intimate

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“It was important to me that people know that you can make plays and raise children at the same time - for other mothers, for other parents, for other women considering having children and who want to be working and thinking and contemplating and making things while they're raising children.”

People Thinking Knows Want Children Important Play Mother Parent Raises Contemplating Considering Raising Children Having Children

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“We all exist in relation to the world, our partners, the human race.”

World Humans Race Relation Partners Human Race

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“It's a privilege to have kids and not live your life in solitude. But we live in a child-hating culture.”

Children Kids Hate Culture Solitude Privilege Live Your Life

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“No one likes kids. We say we do, and we take pictures of pregnant women for People Magazine, but really they're commodities - we hate them around, we hate them on airplanes, we consider them a grand imposition and almost a style choice.”

People Kids Hate Choices Style Likes Magazines Airplane Pregnant Commodity Imposition Pregnant Women

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“I don't read a word that's written about me. I don't read my own interviews. I don't read reviews. I think it would drive me insane.”

Thinking My Own Written Insane Interviews Reviews

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“I think you have to have your own expectations of yourself and your own sense of purpose and your own intrinsic pleasure in the task. If you don't, you will drive yourself off a cliff because your fortunes will rise and fall, and if you identify too closely with that, you really will go insane.”

Ifs Thinking Purpose Fall Pleasure Expectations Tasks Fortune Insane Cliffs Rise And Fall Expectations Of Yourself

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“I see, in women friends, a really dangerous phenomenon where it seems they reach a certain age and become invisible.”

Seems Age Certain Dangerous Invisible Phenomenon

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“I would never be essentialist about sexuality and structure, but I do think there's a way in which this male-arc has been talked about as the only structure, and kind of a stand-in for even the word structure, instead of looking at other forms.”

Thinking Way Kind Has Beens Form Structure Males Sexuality Arcs

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“Plays are architecture, and you can make them stand in many ways that are hard to describe. And, I think, in our limited ability to describe them, we've substituted our inarticulateness for saying that there's one and only one structure.”

Thinking Way Hard Play Ability Structure Architecture

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“Sitting down with younger women writers and saying, "This is what I do and you can do this" is hugely important.”

Important Can Do Sitting Sitting Down

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“A wedding is for daughters and fathers. The mothers all dress up, trying to look like young women. But a wedding is for a father and daughter. They stop being married to each other on that day.”

Trying Looks Young Mother Father Like You Married Daughter Dresses Wedding Young Women Fatherhood Being Married

Book:The Clean House and Other Plays

Source: The Clean House and Other Plays

“I always thought there would be more interesting people at my wedding.”

People Would Be Interesting

Book:Eurydice

Source: Eurydice

“This is what it is to love an artist: The moon is always rising above your house. The houses of your neighbors look dull and lacking in moonlight. But he is always going away from you. Inside his head there is always something more beautiful.”

Love Looks Beautiful Artist House Moon Neighbor Rising Dull Going Away Lacking Moonlight Rise Above Away From You

Book:The Clean House and Other Plays

Source: The Clean House and Other Plays

“I think a person has to believe in something, or search out some kind of faith; otherwise life is empty, nothing. How can you live not knowing why the cranes fly, why children are born, why there are stars in the sky... Either you know why you live, or it's all small, unnecessary bits.”

Thinking Knows Believe Kind Children Persons Life Is Stars Bits Born Knowing Sky Empty Not Knowing Unnecessary Cranes Stars In The Sky

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“I found that life intruding on writing was, in fact, life. And that, tempting as it may be for a writer who is a parent, one must not think of life as an intrusion. At the end of the day, writing has very little to do with writing, and much to do with life. And life, by definition, is not an intrusion.”

Thinking Writing May Littles Ends Facts Found Parent Definitions The End Of The Day Tempting Intrusion

Book:100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater

Source: 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater

“Art is a way of freezing time, or extending time. ... It's another way to bridge the gaps between us.”

Way Art Art Is Bridges Gaps Another Way Extending Freezing

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“Catharsis isn’t a wound being excavated from childhood.”

Childhood Wounds Catharsis

Author:Sarah Ruhl

“Being dead is the most airtight defense of one's own aesthetic.”

Defense Aesthetic

Book:100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater

Source: 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater

About the Author

Born: 1974
Known for: Playwright
Quotes: 43

Related Topics

Thinking Theatre Children People Play Way Love Writing Culture Has Beens

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and TheaterRelated source material

In the Next Room, or the Vibrator PlayRelated source material

The Clean House and Other PlaysRelated source material

The Oldest Boy: A Play in Three CeremoniesRelated source material

EurydiceRelated source material

The Clean HouseRelated source material

Similar Authors

Edward AlbeeBrowse related quotes
Simon McBurneyBrowse related quotes
Lena DunhamBrowse related quotes
Angelina JolieBrowse related quotes
Judd ApatowBrowse related quotes
Anna QuindlenBrowse related quotes
Augusto BoalBrowse related quotes
Zoe KazanBrowse related quotes
Mindy KalingBrowse related quotes
Chuck KlostermanBrowse related quotes