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Character Is An Essential Tendency. It Can Be Covered Up, It Can Be Messed With, It Can Be Screwed Around With, But It Can't Be Ultimately Changed. It's The Structure Of Our Bones, The Blood That Runs Through Our Veins.

-Sam Shepard

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Character Is An Essential

Sam Shepard

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Character Is An Essential Tendency. It Can Be Covered Up, It Can Be Messed With, It Can Be Screwed Around With, But It Can't Be Ultimately Changed. It's The Structure Of Our Bones, The Blood That Runs Through Our Veins.

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Being A Writer Is So Great Because You're Literally Not Dependent On Anybody. Whereas, As An Actor, You Have To Audition Or Wait For Somebody Else To Make A Decision About How To Use You, With Writing, You Can Do It Anywhere, Anytime You Want. You Don't Have To Ask Permission.

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You Can’t Keep Messing Me Around Like This. It’s Been Going On Too Long. I Can’t Take It Anymore. I Get Sick Every Time You Come Around. Then I Get Sick When You Leave. You’re Like A Disease To Me.

I Wanted To Write A Play About Double Nature ... One That Wouldn't Be Symbolic Or Metaphorical Or Any Of That Stuff. I Just Wanted To Give A Taste Of What It Feels Like To Be Two-sided. It's A Real Thing, Double Nature. I Think We're Split In A Much More Devastating Way Than Psychology Can Ever Reveal. It's Not So Cute. Not Some Little Thing We Can Get Over. It's Something We've Got To Live With

I Still Haven't Gotten Over This Thing Of Walking Down The Street And Somebody Recognizing You Because You've Been In A Movie. There's This Illusion That Movie Stars Only Exist In The Movies. And To See One Live Is Like Seeing A Leopard Let Out Of The Zoo.

Ive Been So Spoiled In The Theater, Writing Plays Where I Can Just Do Exactly What I Want And Nobody Messes With Me.

In Many Of My Plays, There Was A Kind Of Autobiographical Character In The Form Of A Son Or Young Man. The Purpose Of It, Of Course, Was To Write About Myself. That Character Was Always The Least Fully Realized. Eighteen Years Later, You Realize, That's What He Was About.

All That Stuff About My Father And My Childhood Is Interesting Up To A Certain Point, But I Kind Of Capsized With The Family Drama A Long Time Ago. Now I Want To Get Away From That. Not That I Won't Return To It, But A Certain Element Has Been Exhausted, And It Feels Like Why Regurgitate All This Stuff?

I Feel Like I've Never Had A Home, You Know? I Feel Related To The Country, To This Country, And Yet I Don't Know Exactly Where I Fit In... There's Always This Kind Of Nostalgia For A Place, A Place Where You Can Reckon With Yourself.

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I'm A Writer. The More I Act, The More Resistance I Have To It. If You Accept Work In A Movie, You Accept To Be Entrapped For A Certain Part Of Time, But You Know You're Getting Out. I'm Also Earning Enough To Keep My Horses, Buying Some Time To Write.

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Ideas Emerge From Plays, Not The Other Way Around.

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