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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

“One of the things I love about my job as a playwright or as a screenwriter is that I get to do a lot of research and a lot of thinking and taking a lot of notes before I turn it in.”

Thinking Jobs Turns Research Notes Playwright Screenwriters Things I Love

Author:Tony Kushner

“I don't think you have to earn your income as an artist to be an artist. But if you are an artist, then art is what you do, whether or not you're paid for doing it; it is what you do, not what you are. I regard artist not as a description of temperament but as a category of profession, of vocation.”

Ifs Thinking Art Artist Art Is Paid Regard Profession Income Description Categories Vocation Temperament

Author:Tony Kushner

“If you know that life is basically going to be horrendously difficult, at best, and all but unlivable at worst, or possibly even unlivable, do you go on? And the choice to go on is the only thing that I think can be called hope. Because if hope isn't forced to encounter the worst possibility, then it's a lie.”

Ifs Thinking Knows Life Is Lying Choices Difficult Worst Possibility Goes On Encounters

Author:Tony Kushner

“I think that it's worthwhile to explore the ways in which you write the person that's writing your plays as opposed to simply assuming that it's all a natural process and there's no design in it. Because your public persona is designed, to a certain extent, and you can have fun and profit at various times doing that.”

Thinking Way Writing Persons Play Certain Fun Process Natural Design Assuming Profit Various Having Fun Worthwhile Persona

Author:Tony Kushner

“If you're a playwright, unless you're really lacking in get-up-and-go, you can always get your play up somewhere. You can't necessarily make a living doing it, but theater is about meeting an audience. Plays are not easier to write necessarily, they take less time to write. If you get them up, it's a much more rough-and-tumble kind of existence. I think it's, from my perspective, easier than novel writing.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Kind Play Existence Novel Audience Perspective Easier Theater Meetings Get Up Rough Lacking Playwright Novel Writing

Author:Tony Kushner

“I think that everybody who writes believes that their work has some kind of use-value, for someone, that there's some need for it, some person or group of people out there has demanded that these words come into being. I think that you do the work for these people. You hope that you can make a living at it. Whatever your ambitions and needs are in that regard, your only real requirement is to try and dig as deeply as you can dig to make sense of the meaning of human existence.”

People Thinking Needs Writing Trying Believe Humans Kind Persons Real Use Values Existence Groups Ambition Regard Make Sense Requirements Human Existence

Author:Tony Kushner

“There are certainly people for whom politics is not a category that helps you understand human existence. In fact, it's kind of a detour into superficiality, and although I disagree with those people, I don't think it's the case that everyone who writes has to write politically or has to write in opposition to the really horrendous things that are going on on a political level in the world today. There are some writers who simply aren't any good at that and really should stay away from it.”

People Thinking World Should Writing Humans Kind Facts Helping Today Political Levels Existence Cases Opposition Categories Disagree World Today Human Existence Superficiality Detours

Author:Tony Kushner

“I love musicals but it's very, very different. It's really just a different form than serious drama, and has very different rules and a completely different set of characters and requirements and ambitions. It maybe shouldn't be as separate as it is, but it's got a different history. In terms of serious drama, I think you'd have to say that you could break it down essentially into the narrative realist tradition and experimental theater.”

Thinking Different Character Form Term Break Serious Drama Ambition Tradition Theater Narrative Requirements Realist I Love Music

Author:Tony Kushner

“There are two strains, I think, in American playwriting, of importance. One is traditional narrative realism, which is definitely my strain, and then the other great contribution is American musical theater, which is a whole other kettle of fish.”

Thinking Two Whole Importance Theater Musical Fishes Traditional Narrative Contribution Realism Strain Kettles Musical Theater Playwriting

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

“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 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 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

“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

“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 make my living now as a screenwriter! Which I’m surprised and horrified to find myself saying, but I don’t think I can support myself as a playwright at this point. I don’t think anybody does.”

Thinking Doe I Can Support Playwright Screenwriters

Author:Tony Kushner

“You have to have hope. It's irresponsible to give false hope, which I think a lot of playwrights are guilty of. But I also think it's irresponsible to simply be a nihilist, which quite a lot of playwrights, especially playwrights younger than me, have become guilty of.”

Thinking Giving Guilty Playwright Irresponsible Having Hope False Hope Nihilist

Author:Tony Kushner

“The kind of theater that I do is sort of ‘narrative realism,’ which I think in the broadest sense is legitimate to say is mainstream. I mean, in a certain sense, Suzan-Lori's plays have had mainstream levels of success. But Suzan-Lori is in some ways not a narrative realist.”

Thinking Way Kind Mean Play Certain Levels Theater Narrative Mainstream Realism Realist

Author:Tony Kushner

“The act of thinking and interpreting is so central to Judaism that it makes more sense that we've become people like Woody Allen - thinkers and talkers and drafters of law.”

People Thinking Law Thinker Judaism Woody Talkers Interpreting

Author:Tony Kushner

“When I teach writing, I always tell my students you should assume that the audience you're writing for is smarter than you. You can't write if you don't think they're on your side, because then you start to yell at them or preach down to them.”

Ifs Thinking Should Writing Sides Teach Audience Students Assuming Smarter Your Side

Author:Tony Kushner

“So I think I'll say the obvious thing: theater is ephemeral. When a production is done, it's gone forever. You can take pictures of it. You can make a film of it. But it's not the production. It's not the same thing.”

Thinking Done Film Gone Forever Theater Productions Obvious Ephemeral Obvious Things

Author:Tony Kushner

About the Author

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

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Writing People Thinking Ifs Play Angels In America Kind Theater Way Knows Playwright World Artist Feels Should Drama Film Mean Tony Kushner America

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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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