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Theater Quotes

Browse 2622 quotes about Theater.

Theater Quotes

“In theater, you are there, you have a character, you have a play, you have a light, you have a set, you have an audience, and you're in control, and every night is different depending on you and the relationship with the other actors. It's as simple as that.”

Different Play Character Light Night Actors Simple Audience Theater Every Night

Author:Diego Luna

“When I made a breakthrough as an actor, people started to say, 'Who's that bloke with the funny name?' They advised me to change it, saying it would never be put up in lights outside theaters because they couldn't afford the electricity. But I would never contemplate changing it. It's who I am.”

People Made Light Actors Names Theater Who I Am Contemplating Electricity Breakthrough Blokes Funny Name

Author:Pete Postlethwaite

“What's a bigger mystery box than a movie theater? You go to the theater, you're just so excited to see anything - the moment the lights go down is often the best part.”

Moments Light Mystery Bigger Theater Boxes Excited Movie Theater

Author:J. J. Abrams

“My most enjoyable movie going experiences have always been going to a movie theater, sitting there and the lights go down and a film comes on the screen that you don't know everything about, and you don't know every plot turn and every character movement that's going to happen.”

Knows Character Light Happens Film Turns Movement Sitting Theater Down And Screens Plot Enjoyable Movie Theater

Author:Christopher Nolan

“The fixation of the theater in one language--written words, music, lights, noises--betokens its imminent ruin.”

Light Language Written Theater Noise Ruins Written Word Fixation

Book:The Theater and Its Double

Source: The Theater and Its Double

“Western man represents himself, on the political or psychological stage, in a spectacular world-theater. Our personality is innately cinematic, light-charged projections flickering on the screen of Western consciousness.”

Men World Light Political Consciousness Stage Personality Theater Western Screens Psychological Projection Spectacular Cinematic

Book:Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays

Source: Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays

“I used to have to wear a gas mask to school when I was a kid because of the dust. I would tell people that the first light I saw was in a movie theater, because the sun was just a little glow.”

People Firsts Littles Light Kids School Used Sun Saws Theater Dust Gas Mask Movie Theater Gas Masks

Author:Dennis Hopper

“What magicians we are, turning darkness into light, transforming invisible atoms into dazzling theater of the world, pulling objects, (people as well as rabbits) out of secret microscopic closets, turning winter into summer, making a palmful of moments disappear through time's trap door. We learned the methods so long ago that they're unconscious, and we've hypnotized ourselves into believing that we're the audience, so I wonder where we served our apprenticeship. Under what master magicians did we learn to form reality so smoothly that we forgot to tell ourselves the secret?”

“Take some wood and canvas and nails and things. Build yourself a theater, a stage, light it, learn about it. When you've done that you will probably know how to write a play.”

Knows Writing Done Play Light Know How Stage Theater Woods Nails Canvas

Book:Eugene O'Neill, comments on the drama and the theater: a source book

Source: Eugene O'Neill, comments on the drama and the theater: a source book

“We must recognize the eloquence of our passions and refuse to be taken in. Instead of saying, 'That false friend always did despise me,' say: 'In my present state of agitation, I can't see clearly, I can't judge clearly; I am only a tragic actor who is declaiming for his own ears.' Then you will see the lights in the theater go out for lack of an audience, and the brilliant sets will be nothing more than painted cardboard.”

I Can States Light Passion Actors Audience Taken Judging Ears Theater Refuse Brilliant Tragic Despise Eloquence Agitation False Friends

Author:Emile Chartier

“I find that with fantasy, you lose yourself in it a lot. It's great to be able to go into a dark theater or turn off the lights in your house and just get sucked into this world. I remember watching Star Wars when I was a little kid when they did the re-release of all the originals. I couldn't even read yet but my uncle took me and he would read me the opening as the words were coming up on the screen. I just remember being so sucked into that and thinking, "I want to be Luke Skywalker."”

“With fame, all of a sudden you're seeing yourself through the eyes of a world of men, and that's . . . Look, it's very weird to have part and parcel of a job to feel like you're a lure for men to come into the theater. Some people do have a very innate sexuality to them. I may or may not have it, but it makes people see you in a certain light that has nothing to do with me.”

People Men World Feels Looks May Light Eye Jobs Certain Seeing Like You Fame Theater Sexuality Innate Lure Through The Eyes Parcel Seeing Yourself

Author:Rose McGowan

“I think any filmmaker will tell you when they wandered from theater to theater to watch their prints, it was disheartening to see the poor levels of light and the disrespect for films that existed in certain theater chains. It was always inconsistent. And in the lab, too, the photochemical process was very difficult to watch, because sometimes they were shipping prints that you didn't even know were two points off or three points off. We suffered greatly to make these films, and they'd be out-of-focus, with the sound too low.”

Thinking Knows Two Sometimes Light Film Certain Three Process Difficult Sound Poor Levels Watches Focus Lows Theater Chains Filmmaker Print Disrespect Labs Inconsistent Shipping Disheartening

Author:Oliver Stone

“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.”

“When I am lonely for boys it’s their bodies I miss. I study their hands lifting the cigarettes in the darkness of the movie theaters, the slope of a shoulder, the angle of a hip. Looking at them sideways, I examine them in different lights. My love for them is visual: that is the part of them I would like to possess. Don’t move, I think. Stay like that, let me have that.”

Thinking Different Body Hands Light Moving Boys Darkness Study Missing Lonely Let Me Theater Shoulders Hips Visuals Cigarette Angle Lifting Slopes Sideways Movie Theater I Am Lonely

Author:Margaret Atwood

“During intermission she peeked out at the theater, watching it refill. When it was almost full and the lights blinked on and off, she saw three people file in through the center door and her breath caught. Time lapsed as they walked down the center aisle: three teenage girls all in a row. They were so big, so bright, so beautiful, so magnificent to Carmen’s eyes that she thought she was imagining them. They were like goddesses, like Titans. She was so proud of them! They were benevolent and they were righteous. Now, these were friends.”

People Bigs Light Eye Beautiful Girl Three Saws Doors Proud Theater Breaths Caught Righteous Goddess Magnificent Teenage Files Benevolent And Off Aisle Teenage Girl Titans Intermission Refills

Author:Ann Brashares

“What brought me to the theater, no matter you're a Jew or a Russian or Armenian or Latvian, are suddenly illuminated by stage light and one beautiful image of dance.”

Matter Light Beautiful Stage Theater Dance Jew Armenians Beautiful Images

Author:Mikhail Baryshnikov

“The theater, which is in no thing, but makes use of everything - gestures, sounds, words, screams, light, darkness - rediscovers itself at precisely the point where the mind requires a language to express its manifestations.... To break through language in order to touch life is to create or recreate the theatre.”

Mind Use Light Life Is Order Language Sound Break Darkness Theater Theatre Manifestation Scream Gestures Break Through Darkness To Light

Author:Antonin Artaud

“Whatever is done without ostentation, and without the people being witnesses of it, is, in my opinion, most praiseworthy: not that the public eye should be entirely avoided, for good actions desire to be placed in the light; but notwithstanding this, the greatest theater for virtue is conscience.”

People Inspirational Should Done Light Eye Action Desire Opinion Virtue Conscience Theater Witness Avoided Public Eye Praiseworthy Good Actions Ostentation

Book:Thoughts of Cicero, on the following subjects, viz. I. Religion, II. Man ... XII. Miscellaneous thoughts. Published in Latin and French by the Abbé d'Olivet; to which is now added, an English translation, with notes. [By Alexander Wishart.]

Source: Thoughts of Cicero, on the following subjects, viz. I. Religion, II. Man ... XII. Miscellaneous thoughts. Published in Latin and French by the Abbé d'Olivet; to which is now added, an English translation, with notes. [By Alexander Wishart.]

“Well, I go to the theater today, and its curtain - there is no curtain in this play; the lights go down and go up - and we start. And I live this character for two hours. There are only two of us in the play. And It's a complete experience.”

Wells Two Play Character Light Today Hours Theater Down And Curtains Live For Today Two Of Us

Author:Eli Wallach

“Gene [Siskel] often mentioned something François Truffaut once told him: the most beautiful sight in a movie theater is to walk down to the front, turn around, and look at the light from the screen reflected on the upturned faces of the members of the audience.”

Looks Light Beautiful Faces Turns Walks Audience Fronts Members Sight Theater Screens Genes Movie Theater Beautiful Sights

Author:Roger Ebert

“It seems to me that the thing that makes the theater worthwhile is the fact that it attracts so many people with ideas who are constantly trying to share them with the public. Real art is illumination. It gives a man an idea he never had before or lights up ideas that were formless or only lurking in the shadows of his mind. It adds stature to life.”

People Men Giving Trying Mind Art Ideas Real Facts Light Seems Share Art Is Shadow Theater Add Worthwhile Illumination Stature Light Up Lurking

Author:Brooks Atkinson