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Tony Kushner

Tony Kushner Quotes

Playwright

Tony Kushner is an American playwright known for his profound social and political commentary and complex character development. His works often explore historical, moral, and identity issues, reflecting the diversity and complexity of American society. His most famous works include 'Angels in America' and 'Homebody/Kabul.' Kushner has received numerous awards for his outstanding contributions to theater, including the Pulitzer Prize.

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Famous Tony Kushner Quotes

“I'm not an experimental artist. I have no talent for that. I need a certain kind of antecedent form to follow.”

Needs Kind Form Artist Certain Talent

Author:Tony Kushner

“I think that when you're writing plays, and I think it's also true with novels, it helps to have an ear for the music of language, for what we call poetry, for the sound effects and the way that the sound can produce sensual feeling at odds with or consonant with the content of the work. Your work is also gorgeous writing. It's very unfortunate when you open a novel that everybody's loving and it's just, you know, an excruciatingly bad sentence.”

Thinking Knows Way Writing Play Helping Feelings Language Sound Novel Effects Produce Ears Sentences Sensual Odds Unfortunate Gorgeous Consonants Sound Effects

Author:Tony Kushner

“Part of what makes for good writing is an ear for what we would call the poetical. Poetry itself is another thing and it seems to me to be the most difficult writing - that those people are the best writers and they lead the way for everyone else and their writing is frighteningly great.”

People Way Writing Seems Difficult Ears Good Writing

Author:Tony Kushner

“I have kind of an almost religious feeling about poets. I usually refuse to meet them because I admire them so much. Except for Poe.”

Kind Feelings Religious Poet Refuse Admire

Author:Tony Kushner

“I don't know anything about making movies. I'd never been on a film set. I'm really kind of an idiot when it comes to figuring out where objects are in space. If they're both moving, I can't do the math. If you ever see me driving down a road, go somewhere else quickly.”

Ifs Knows Kind I Can Film Moving Space Objects Math Driving Idiot Somewhere Else Film Set

Author:Tony Kushner

“Being on a film set is like being in tech forever. In theater, when you finally finish rehearsing, you go onstage and you do the lights and the sets and you make the machine of the production work. It takes usually about ten days in the theater, two or three weeks if it's a really big musical. I mean, it's hell on earth. You just sit around forever while they adjust the lights. And every playwright with half a brain runs for the hills when tech starts because it's so boring, and you don't want to talk to the director because the director is running this giant machine.”

“Film is like tech starts on the first day of filming and it never stops. There's never a moment when the audience comes in, you're just in tech forever, and I can't stand being on a film set. It's really tedious.”

Firsts I Can Moments Film Audience Forever Tedious Film Set

Author:Tony Kushner

“Unions are susceptible to the same ills that befall all human societies.”

Humans Unions Human Society Susceptible

Author:Tony Kushner

“If you have value as an artist it's probably going to be in your capacity to let things inside you get past things that are placed there to keep you from telling the truth. The more you see things as clearly and coldly as you can, the more value you're going to have.”

Ifs Past Artist Values Capacity Telling The Truth

Author:Tony Kushner

“You have a strange relationship with calamity when you're a writer: you write about it; as an artist, you objectify and fetishize it. You render life into material, and that's a creepy thing to do.”

Writing Artist Strange Materials Things To Do Calamity Creepy

Author:Tony Kushner

“A play should have barely been rescued from the mess it might just as easily have been.”

Should Has Beens Play Might Should Have Mess

Book:Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness: Essays, A Play, Two Poems and a Prayer

Source: Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness: Essays, A Play, Two Poems and a Prayer

“Artists know that diligence counts as much, if not more, as inspiration; in art, as in politics, patience counts as much as revolution.”

Ifs Knows Art Inspiration Artist Revolution Diligence

Author:Tony Kushner

“As a playwright, you are a torturer of actors and of the audience as well. You inflict things on people.”

People Wells Actors Audience Playwright

Author:Tony Kushner

“Gay TV has been immensely important in transforming American culture in a more gay-positive direction.”

Has Beens Important Culture Tvs Gay American Culture Transforming

Author:Tony Kushner

“God knows I've had productions where there were actors in my plays who were making more money per week than I was.”

Knows Play Actors Week Productions More Money God Knows

Author:Tony Kushner

“I don't feel, finally, that my politics are entirely determined by the fact that I'm a gay man.”

Men Feels Facts Gay Determined Gay Men

Author:Tony Kushner

“I love reading; it's a great way to avoid writing.”

Way Writing Reading Love Of Reading

Author:Tony Kushner

“I tend to be sort of quiet and shy and awkward in social situations.”

Social Situation Quiet Shy Awkward Awkward Situations

Author:Tony Kushner

“I work best after the deadline has passed, when I'm in a panic.”

Author:Tony Kushner

“It has always seemed to me that Barack Obama has studied intensely and learned a great deal from Lincoln.”

Author:Tony Kushner

“People shouldn't trust artists and they shouldn't trust art. Part of the fun of art is that it invites you to interpret it.”

People Art Artist Fun Art Is Invites

Author:Tony Kushner

“The computer, the noise of the computer feels like impatience. It's sort of the sound of impatience to me.”

Feels Sound Computer Noise Impatience

Author:Tony Kushner

“The work of artists is to find what's humanly possible - possibility's furthest reaches.”

Artist Possibility

Author:Tony Kushner

“Theater really gets damaged when there is a paucity of good criticism around.”

Criticism Theater

Author:Tony Kushner

“There's a kind of a fundamental irresponsibility in playwriting, and the strength of playwriting comes from that irresponsibility.”

Kind Fundamentals Irresponsibility Playwriting

Author:Tony Kushner

“There's a way in which 'The Illusion' is a play about the theater.”

Way Play Illusion Theater

Author:Tony Kushner

“You don't go to the movies to do historical research, unless it's historical research about the movies.”

Research Historical Historical Research

Author:Tony Kushner

“A handful of works in history have had a direct impact on social policy: one or two works of Dickens, some of Zola, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' and, in modern drama, Larry Kramer's 'The Normal Heart.'”

Heart Two Social Modern Policy Drama Normal Direct Impact Toms Uncles Handful Larry Dickens Cabins Social Policy Kramer Uncle Tom Zola

Author:Tony Kushner

“Accuracy is paramount in every detail of a work of history. Here's my rule: Ask yourself, 'Did this thing happen?' If the answer is yes, then it's historical. Then ask, 'Did this thing happen precisely this way?' If the answer is yes, then it's history; if the answer is no, not precisely this way, then it's historical drama.”

Ifs Way Happens Asks Answers Drama Historical Details Things Happen Accuracy Paramount

Author:Tony Kushner

“But I still read Shaw on a regular basis. What I love is the nakedness of the polemic and the irresistible good humour. For me, 'Major Barbara' is the greatest of all the plays in that it starts from the rational and proceeds to the ecstatic in a spectacular way, and leaves you very confused if you cling to Euclidean logic.”

Ifs Way Stills Play Love Is Humour Majors Logic Bases Rational Confused Spectacular Irresistible Ecstatic Barbara Polemics Good Humour

Author:Tony Kushner

“But I think what made me go into theater was seeing my mother onstage. The first thing she did was Mrs. Frank in 'The Diary of Anne Frank.' The second thing she did was a play about Freud called 'The Far Country.' She played a paralyzed woman in Vienna who goes to see Freud.”

Thinking Firsts Made Country Play Mother Seeing Theater Frank Diaries Paralyzed Vienna

Author:Tony Kushner

“I don't write political plays in the sense that I'm writing essays that are kind of disguised as plays. I would really defy anyone to watch any of my plays and say 'Well, here's the point.'”

Writing Wells Kind Play Political Watches Essays Writing Essays

Author:Tony Kushner

“I go into any movie that's historical fiction thinking, 'OK, I'm here to watch a work of art, something delivering a series of opinions, and if it's a good work of art, these opinions become so deeply embedded in complexity and richness that I won't even be bothered by the opinions. I'll make my own mind up.'”

Ifs Thinking Mind Art My Own Fiction Opinion Watches Historical Series Complexity Works Of Art Historical Fiction Good Work Richness Bothered Embedded Delivering

Author:Tony Kushner

“I grew up in a small Southern town, and there were white people and black people. Coming to New York to go to Columbia, every time I went into the subway I was absolutely astounded because you see people from all over the world who actually live here - who aren't just here as tourists.”

People World Black White New York Grew Grew Up Towns Southern Black People Tourists Subway Columbia Astounded

Author:Tony Kushner

“I had a dream, in 1985, I believe, when a friend I'd gone to school with was sick - one of the first people I knew who'd gotten the AIDS virus. I had a dream of him in his bedroom with an angel crashing through the ceiling. I wrote a poem called 'Angels in America.' I've never looked at the poem since the day I wrote it.”

People Firsts Believe Dream School America I Believe Gone Angel Sick Aids Bedroom Ceilings Viruses I Had A Dream Angels In America

Author:Tony Kushner

“I think I'll always be a better playwright than a pundit, but I believe that writers should be public intellectuals and that theater, even more than film, is a place of public debate.”

Thinking Should Believe Film I Believe Theater Debate Playwright Pundits

Author:Tony Kushner

“I write plays and movies, I live and work at the borderline between word and image just as any cartoonist or illustrator does. I’m not a pure writer. I use words as the score for kinetic imagistic representations.”

Writing Doe Play Use Pure Score Representation Cartoonist Borderline Illustrators

Author:Tony Kushner

“I'm happy that I feel a little less out of place in filmmaking than I once was - but it's almost impossible for a playwright in the U.S. to make a living. You can have a play, like I did with 'Angels,' and it still generates income for me, but it's not enough for me to live on and have health insurance.”

Feels Littles Stills Enough Play Actors Impossible Angel Income Movie Filmmaking Playwright

Author:Tony Kushner

“If you're gay and you can't hold hands, or you're black and you can't catch a taxi, or you're a woman and you can't go into the park, you are aware there's a menace. That's costly on a psychic level. The world should be striving to make all its members secure.”

Ifs World Should Hands Black Levels Gay Members Strive Secure Parks Psychics Taxi Menace Holding Hands

Author:Tony Kushner

“In a way, film and television are in the same sort of traumatic trance that print journalism is. The technology has outpaced our comprehension of its implications.”

Way Film Technology Television Journalism Print Implications Comprehension Trance Film And Television

Author:Tony Kushner

“The general consensus among historians, among the ones who can handle the fact that 'Lincoln' is, in fact, historical fiction, is that we demonstrate enormous fidelity to history and that, beyond that, we've actually contributed a line of thinking about Lincoln's presidency that's somewhat original.”

Thinking Facts Lines Fiction Originals Historical Enormous Handle Historical Fiction Historian Presidency Consensus Fidelity

Author:Tony Kushner

“You have a good heart and you think the good thing is to be guilty and kind but it's not always kind to be gentle and soft, there's a genuine violence softness and kindness visit on people. Sometimes self-interested is the most generous thing you can be.”

People Thinking Heart Kind Self Sometimes Kindness Violence Good Things Genuine Guilty Gentle Generous Softness Good Heart

Author:Tony Kushner

“I just wondered what a thing it would be...if overnight everything you owe anything to, justice, or love, had really gone away. Free. It would be...heartless terror. Yes. Terrible, and... Very great. To shed your skin, every old skin, one by one and then walk away, unemcumbered, into the morning.”

Ifs Would Be Justice Walks Morning Gone Terrible Skins Terror Shed Heartless Gone Away

Book:Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition

Source: Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition

“Imagination can't create anything new, can it? It only recycles bits and pieces from the world and reassembles them into visions... So when we thing we've escaped the unbearable ordinariness and, well, untruthfulness of our lives, it's really only the same old ordinariness and falseness rearranged into the appearance of novelty and truth. Nothing unknown is knowable.”

Thinking World Wells Bits Imagination Vision Pieces Our Lives Appearance Depressing Unbearable Novelty Bits And Pieces Ordinariness Falseness Angels In America Untruthfulness

Author:Tony Kushner

“I hate America. I hate this country. It’s just big ideas, and stories, and people dying, and people like you. The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word 'free' to a note so high nobody can reach it. That was deliberate. Nothing on earth sounds less like freedom to me. You come to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean. I live in America, that’s hard enough, I don’t have to love it. You do that. Everybody’s got to love something.”

“Don't be afraid; people are so afraid; don't be afraid to live in the raw wind, naked, alone...Learn at least this: What you are capable of. Let nothing stand in your way.”

People Way Wind Capable Naked

Book:Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition

Source: Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition

“The white cracker who wrote the National Anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word "free" to a note so high nobody could reach it. That was deliberate.”

White Notes Deliberate Anthem Crackers National Anthem Angels In America

Book:Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition

Source: Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition

“Respect the delicate ecology of your delusions.”

Delusion Delicate Ecology

Book:Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition

Source: Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition

“I wish you would be more true to your demographic profile. Life is confusing enough.”

Enough Would Be Life Is Wish Confusing Wish You Profile Demographics I Wish You Would

Book:Angels in America: a gay fantasia on national themes

Source: Angels in America: a gay fantasia on national themes

“The smallest indivisible human unit is two people, not one; one is a fiction. From such nets of souls societies, the social world, human life springs.”

People World Humans Two Soul Social Community Fiction Spring Human Life Smallest Units Indivisible

Book:Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness: Essays, A Play, Two Poems and a Prayer

Source: Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness: Essays, A Play, Two Poems and a Prayer

About the Author

Born: July 16, 1956
Known for: Playwright
Quotes: 148

Related Topics

Writing People Thinking Ifs Play Angels In America Kind Theater Way Knows

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Books & Sources

Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete EditionRelated source material

Angels in AmericaRelated source material

Millennium ApproachesRelated source material

A Bright Room Called DayRelated source material

PerestroikaRelated source material

Angels in America: a gay fantasia on national themesRelated source material

Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness: Essays, A Play, Two Poems and a PrayerRelated source material

ANGELS IN AMERICA LIMITED EDITION COLLECTION OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND CD SAMPLER FROM HBO FILMSRelated source material

Angels in America, Part Two: PerestroikaRelated source material

Homebody/Kabul: Final Revised VersionRelated source material

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