“I'm being mocked because I don't live up to a socially determined view of what other people think a person should look like.” PeopleThinkingShouldLooksPersonsViewsDetermined Author:Wallace Shawn
“For some reason, people find me funny. It's quite hard to define why a thought is funny. It's even harder to define why a person would be funny. It's a word that I can't define at all. But whether I know quite what it is or not, I seem to be it.” PeopleKnowsPersonsI CanHardReasonSeemsWould BeHarderFind Me Author:Wallace Shawn
“When I was a child, I did always feel that people were hiding things, and that they weren't expressing their true feelings. When adults are too complicated, and cover their emotions with layers of well-intentioned subterfuge, the child isn't seeing reality clearly enough and gets upset.” PeopleFeelsWellsChildrenEnoughFeelingsRealityEmotionSeeingAdultsComplicatedUpsetHidingLayersTrue FeelingsSubterfugeHiding Things Author:Wallace Shawn
“I grew up. I began to think the United States had some problems that really required the help of artistic people to solve. And I gave myself permission to be a writer instead of a civil servant.” PeopleThinkingStatesHelpingProblemUnitedUnited StatesGrewGrew UpSolveArtisticServantPermissionCivil Servants Author:Wallace Shawn
“My personal life is lived as 'me,' but my professional life is lived as other people. In other words, when I go to the office, I lie down, dream, and become 'someone else.' That's my job.” PeopleDreamJobsLife IsLyingOfficePersonal LifeProfessional Life Book:Essays Source: Essays
“When I was first exposed to the films of Ingmar Bergman, I found them frank and disturbing portraits of the world we live in, but that was not something that displeased me. They were beautiful. I thought people would respond to my plays the way I responded to Bergman's films.” PeopleWorldWayFirstsPlayBeautifulFilmFoundExposedFrankPortraitsDisturbingBergman Author:Wallace Shawn
“I think I'm trying to write truthfully about life, and naturalism, or the way people normally talk in movies, is a convention. It's not the way people talk in life at all.” PeopleThinkingWayWritingTryingConventionsNaturalism Author:Wallace Shawn
“You're always fighting the contradiction between the supposed intimacy of a two-person conversation and the blunt reality that you're trying to sell the play to people who are sitting maybe too far away from you.” PeopleTryingPersonsTwoPlayRealityFightingConversationSittingSellsIntimacyContradictionFar AwayAway From YouBluntAlways Fighting Author:Wallace Shawn
“I love going to plays. There's a subconscious side to it, obviously-some people like to be spanked for XYZ psychological reasons, and I like to go to plays, and I can't entirely explain why.” PeopleI CanReasonPlaySidesPsychologicalSubconscious Author:Wallace Shawn
“I grew up in a very polite family, and I suppose my parents were both very polite, and from the time I was a young boy, I suspected that there were passions seething underneath and not being mentioned, and that was something that came to preoccupy me. Somehow I had some drive to write down what people might really be thinking.” PeopleThinkingWritingPassionParentBoysPoliteBeing Me Author:Wallace Shawn
“I'm trying to write truthfully about life, and naturalism, or the way people normally talk in movies, is a convention. The way I write is about life and is quite truthful, and there is a kind of brutal side to the relationship, and to the feelings, that makes it somewhat painful, but I think it's a very intense portrait of the relationship of two people. And a bit about what people feel like when they're alone, because it all takes place in one day, and during the day, they spend a lot of time alone in their different - you get to imagine what their fantasy lives are like.” PeopleThinkingWritingTryingKindDifferentFeelingsFantasyImagineOne DayPainfulIntenseTruthfulBrutalMe AloneNaturalism Author:Wallace Shawn
“All of my plays have puzzled some people, and I'm happy to say delighted a few, but a lot of people have just not seen how quite to look at them. And this film... if you like my writing, you'll like this film. If you don't, you won't like the film. It's pretty faithful to - it's a pretty uncompromising presentation of my way of seeing things, I suppose.” PeopleWritingFilmMy WayFaithfulUncompromising Author:Wallace Shawn
“I see myself as a citizen of the planet. Even as a child, I always found it mindless to root for your own team. I was puzzled by the fact that people said their own team was better than other teams simply because it was theirs.” PeopleChildrenSaidFactsFoundTeamPlanetsCitizensRootsMindlessPuzzled Author:Wallace Shawn
“I do things, and other people laugh at them. I rarely know what the joke is supposed to be or why they're laughing.” PeopleKnowsLaughingJokesSupposed To Be Author:Wallace Shawn
“I have been vain since birth. I expected other people to like what I did, although my vanity has definitely diminished over the years.” PeopleYearsHas BeensBirthExpectedVanityVain Author:Wallace Shawn
“I'm a very lucky man. It's a beautiful thing for a writer, to see people allowing your words to enter their own unconscious and their souls.” PeopleMenSoulBeautifulLuckyUnconsciousAllowingBeautiful ThingsLucky Man Author:Wallace Shawn
“A play presents a self-enclosed little world for the audience to examine. It's an opportunity to look objectively at a group of people, to assess them, to react to them, and to measure oneself against them, to ask 'Am I like that?'” PeopleWorldLooksLittlesSelfPlayAsksOpportunityAudienceGroupsOneself Author:Wallace Shawn
“I sincerely believe that if Bush and Cheney recognized the full humanity of other people's mothers around the world, they wouldn't commit the crimes they commit.” PeopleIfsWorldBelieveMotherHumanityInspiringCrimeCommitAround The WorldSincerelyMothers Day Author:Wallace Shawn
“My style as a human being is to indulge people who need to escape, yet I insist on confronting them as a playwright. It's quite embarrassing, it's quite unpleasant, it's quite awkward.” PeopleNeedsHumansHuman BeingsStyleCraftsAwkwardEmbarrassingIndulgePlaywrightConfronting Book:Writing Wrongs: The Work of Wallace Shawn Source: Writing Wrongs: The Work of Wallace Shawn
