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She Refers To Her Past As The Time Before She Was "blown Away.

-Sam Shepard

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She Refers To Her

Sam Shepard

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She Refers To Her Past As The Time Before She Was "blown Away.

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In Real Life We Don't Know What's Going To Happen Next. So How Can You Be That Way On A Stage? Being Alive To The Possibility Of Not Knowing Exactly How Everything Is Going To Happen Next - If You Can Find Places To Have That Happen Onstage, It Can Resonate With An Experience Of Living.

There's Gonna Be A General Lack Of Toast In The Neighborhood This Morning.

People Talk About The 1960s In A Nostalgic Way, But To Me It Was Terrifying. People Were Getting Assassinated. There Was Vietnam. There Were Race Riots. It Felt Like Everything Was Going To Get Blown Up Sky-high. It Didn’t Feel Like Flower Power. It Felt Like Armageddon.

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I Don't Want To Be A Playwright, I Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star.

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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?

Film Acting Is Really The Trick Of Doing Moments. You Rarely Do A Take That Lasts More Than 20 Seconds. You Really Earn Your Spurs Acting Onstage. I Needed To Do That For Myself. I Would Hate To Say At The End Of Everything That I Never Did A Stage Play.

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 Had A Definite Sense Of Somehow Being A Passenger In An Evil Vehicle Crusing Through Paradise.

The Fantastic Thing About The Theatre Is That It Can Make Something Be Seen That's Invisible, And That's Where My Interest In Theatre Is- That You Can Be Watching This Thing Happening With Actors And Costumes And Light And Set And Language, And Even Plot, And Something Emerges From Beyond That, And That's The Image Part That I'm Looking For, That Sort Of Added Dimension.

My Dad Had A Lot Of Bad Luck. You Could See His Suffering, His Terrible Suffering, Living A Life That Was Disappointing And Looking For Another One.

I Feel Very Lucky And Privileged To Be A Writer. I Feel Lucky In The Sense That I Can Branch Out Into Prose And Tell Different Kinds Of Stories And Stuff. But Being A Writer Is So Great Because Youre Literally Not Dependent On Anybody.

Everyone Wants A Piece Of Land. It's The Only Sure Investment. It Can Never Depreciate Like A Car Or A Washing Machine. Land Will Double Its Value In Ten Years. In Less Than That. Land Is Going Up Every Day.

She Refers To Her Past As The Time Before She Was "blown Away.

It's One Of The Great Tragedies Of Our Contemporary Life In America, That Families Fall Apart. Almost Everybody Has That In Common.

I Was In The War. I Know How To Kill. I Was Over There. I Know How To Do It. I've Done It Before. It's No Big Deal. You Just Make An Adjustment. You Convince Yourself It's All Right. That's All. It's Easy. You Just Slaughter Them.

The California I Knew, Old Rancho California, Is Gone. It Just Doesn't Exist, Except Maybe In Little Pockets. I Lived On The Edge Of The Mojave Desert, An Area That Used To Be Farm Country. There Were All These Fresh-produce Stands With Avocados And Date Palms. You Could Get A Dozen Artichokes For A Buck Or Something. Totally Wiped Out Now.

I Believe In My Mask-- The Man I Made Up Is Me I Believe In My Dance-- And My Destiny

[rewriting Is] A Whole Other Art Form; It's About Craftsmanship.

Keep Away From Fantasy. Shake Off The Image.

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The Great Thing For Me, Now, Is That Writing Has Become More And More Interesting. Not Just As A Craft But As A Way Into Things That Are Not Described. It's A Thing Of Discovering. That's When Writing Is Really Working. You're On The Trail Of Something And You Don't Quite Know What It Is.

I'll Develop My Own Image. I'm An Original Man. A One And Only. I Just Need Some Help.

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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I Think Without Writing I Would Feel Completely Useless.

We're Being Sold A Brand New Idea Of Patriotism. It Never Occurred To Me That Patriotism Had To Be Advertised. Patriotism Is Something You Deeply Felt. You Didn't Have To Wear It On Your Lapel Or Show It In Your Window Or On A Bumper Sticker. That Kind Of Patriotism Does Not Appeal To Me At All.

This Isn't Champagne Anymore. We Went Through The Champagne A Long Time Ago. This Is Serious Stuff. The Days Of Champagne Are Long Gone.

When You See The Way Things Deteriorate Before Your Very Eyes. Everything Running Down Hill. It's Kind Of Silly To Even Think About Youth.

Sides Are Being Divided Now. It's Very Obvious. So If You're On The Other Side Of The Fence, You're Suddenly Anti-american. It's Breeding Fear Of Being On The Wrong Side.

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

I Got To New York When I Was Eighteen. I Was Knocking Around, Trying To Be An Actor, Writer, Musician, Whatever Happened.

After The Falling Out With My Father, I Worked On A Couple Of Ranches - Thoroughbred Layup Farms, Actually - Out Toward Chino, California. That Was Fine For A Little While, But I Wanted To Get Out Completely, And Twenty Miles Away Wasnt Far Enough.

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I've Come To Feel That If I Can't Make Something Happen In Under An Hour And A Half, It's Not Going To Happen In A Compelling Way In A Three-hour Play.

You Can't Make A Living As A Playwright. You Can Barely Scrape By.

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The Words I Overuse Are All Adverbs.

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There's No Way To Escape The Fact That We've Grown Up In A Violent Culture, We Just Can't Get Away From It, It's Part Of Our Heritage. I Think Part Of It Is That We've Always Felt Somewhat Helpless In The Face Of This Vast Continent. Helplessness Is Answered In Many Ways, But One Of Them Is Violence.

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My First Job Was With The Burns Detective Agency. They Sent Me Over To The East River To Guard Coal Barges During These God-awful Hours Like Three To Six In The Morning. It Wasn't A Very Difficult Job -- All I Had To Do Was Make A Round Every Fifteen Minutes -- But It Turned Out To Be A Great Environment For Writing. I Was Completely Alone In A Little Outhouse With An Electric Heater And A Little Desk.

I Didn't Go Out Of My Way To Get Into This Movie Stuff. I Think Of Myself As A Writer.

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.

I Hate Endings. Just Detest Them. Beginnings Are Definitely The Most Exciting, Middles Are Perplexing And Endings Are A Disaster. … The Temptation Towards Resolution, Towards Wrapping Up The Package, Seems To Me A Terrible Trap. Why Not Be More Honest With The Moment? The Most Authentic Endings Are The Ones Which Are Already Revolving Towards Another Beginning. That’s Genius.

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