Home / Quotes / Quote by Moss Hart

Quote by Moss Hart

“Charity in the theatre usually begins and ends with people who have a play opening the week following one's own. Their unlikely benevolence is not so much a purity of heart as the knowledge that they face a firing line with rifles aimed in exactly the same direction.”

Quote by Moss Hart

Work

This book is the opening act of a larger narrative, introducing characters and setting the tone for the story to unfold. more

Author

Moss Hart, a British playwright, was born on October 24, 1904, and died on December 20, 1961. He is renowned for his unique sense of humor and profound theatrical insight, considered one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century. more

You May Also Like

“The theatre breeds its own kind of cruelty, and its sadism takes on a keener edge since it can be enjoyed under the innocent guise of critical judgment.”

Kind Judgment Edges Critical Theatre Innocent Cruelty Enjoyed Guise Sadism

Book:act one

Source: act one

“There is nothing like tasting the grit of fear for rediscovering that the umbilical cord is made of piano wire.”

Made Family Piano Wire Grit Cords Tasting Umbilical Cord

Book:act one

Source: act one

“A sharp sense of the ironic can be the equivalent of the faith that moves mountains. Far more quicky than reason or logic, irony can penetrate rage and puncture self-pity.”

Self Reason Humor Moving Mountain Logic Rage Pity Irony Ironic Penetrate Self Pity Move Mountains Puncture

Book:act one

Source: act one

“Boredom is the keynote of poverty — of all its indignities, it is perhaps the hardest of all to live with — for where there is no money there is no change of any kind, not of scene or of routine. To be able to break out of its dark brown sameness.”

Dark Poor Poverty Rich Boredom Brown Rich And Poor Sameness

Author:Moss Hart

“Self-deception is sometimes as necessary a tool as a crowbar.”

Self Sometimes Tools Deception Self Deception

Book:act one

Source: act one

“I have had the irreplaceable opportunity of learning my profession with the proper tools, the most important of which is not a pencil or a typewriter, but the necessary time to think before using them.”

Thinking Important Time Opportunity Tools Profession Pencils Typewriters Time To Think Irreplaceable

Book:act one

Source: act one

“Playwriting, like begging in India, is an honorable but humbling profession.”

India Theater Profession Honorable Begging Humbling Playwriting

Author:Moss Hart

“The frivolity with which all theatrical activity is conducted has one consoling feature-there are no rules of behavior that apply regularly to any part of the theatre.”

Activity Behavior Theater Theatre Features Theatrical Consoling Frivolity

Book:act one

Source: act one

“There is nothing that one can say about acting, writing, producing or directing that cannot be revoked in the next breath. Nothing is immutable. The logic of one year is a folly of the next.”

Writing Years Next Acting Logic Theater Breaths Folly

Book:act one

Source: act one

“Without vanity a writer's work is tepid, and he must accept his vanity as part of his stock in trade and live with it as one of the hazards of his profession.”

Accepting Trade Profession Vanity Hazards

Book:act one

Source: act one