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You're Alive Only Once, As Far As We Know, And What Could Be Worse Than Getting To The End Of Your Life And Realizing You Hadn't Lived It?
-Edward Albee
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You're Alive Only Once,

Edward Albee
...
You're Alive Only Once, As Far As We Know, And What Could Be Worse Than Getting To The End Of Your Life And Realizing You Hadn't Lived It?

Understanding the Quote: "you're alive only once, as far as we know, and what could..."

This quote by Edward Albee reflects deeply on the theme of alive. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Alive, Realizing, Ends, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Edward Albee interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Edward Albee

Edward Albee is celebrated for insightful thoughts on alive and realizing. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Alive
Realizing
Ends
More From Edward Albee
Maybe It's A Little More Pertinent Now Since The Whole Concept Of Evolution Is Being Questioned By The Know-nothing Republican Right. Yes, Maybe The Play's A Little More Pertinent Now.
Play
Littles
Evolution
The Notion That Women Are Less Aesthetically Profound And Innovative Than Men--just Not Very Important, If You Know What I Mean--doubtless Spreads Back To Our Beginnings As Upright Animals: The Males Hunted And Killed For The Family While The Females Stayed Home In The Cave And Tended The Strange Little Creatures They Were Giving Birth To.
Women
Home
Mean
Writing Has Got To Be An Act Of Discovery. Finding Out Things About What One Is Writing About.
Writing
Discovery
Findings
I Suppose, Writing A Play Is Finding Out What The Play Is.
Writing
Play
Findings
You...you've Been Here Quite A Long Time, Haven't You?" What? Oh...yes. Ever Since I Married What's-her-name. Uh, Martha. Even Before That. Forever. Dashed Hopes, And Good Intentions. Good, Better, Best, Bested. How Do You Like That For A Declension, Young Man?
Men
Names
Long
When A Play Enters My Consciousness, Is Already A Fairly Well-developed Fetus. I Don't Put Down A Word Until The Play Seems Ready To Be Written.
Writing
Play
Fetus
Read The Great Stuff, But Read The Stuff That Isn't So Great, Too. Great Stuff Is Very Discouraging. If You Read Only Beckett And Chekhov, You'll Go Away And Only Deliver Telegrams For Western Union.
Going Away
Unions
Stuff
Sometimes It's Necessary To Go A Long Distance Out Of The Way In Order To Come Back A Short Distance Correctly.
Distance
Philosophy
Philosophical
I Don't Think I've Ever Written About Me. I'm Not A Character In Any Of My Plays, Except That Boy, That Silent Boy That Turns Up In Three Tall Women.
Character
Boys
Thinking
Audiences And, To A Large Extent, Critics Who Want Less From Theater Than It Is Possible For It To Give. If Everybody's Encouraged To Want Less, You'll End Up With Less.
Giving
Want
Ends
I Was Twenty-nine Years Old And I Wasn't A Very Good Poet And I Wasn't A Very Good Novelist, [so] I Thought I Would Try Writing A Play, Which Seems To Have Worked Out A Little Better.
Writing
Years
Play
That's The Happiest Moment. When It's All Done. When We Stop. When We Can Stop.
Done
Moments
Why We Are Here Is An Impenetrable Question.
Why We Are Here
People Often Ask Me How Long It Takes Me To Write A Play, And I Tell Them 'all Of My Life.'
Writing
Play
Long
There Are Always Going To Be More Actors Than Anybody Can Ever Use.
Acting
Use
Actors
When People Can't Abide Things As They Are, When They Can't Abide The Present, They Do One Of Two Things ... Either They ... Either They Turn To A Contemplation Of The Past ... Or They Set About To ... Alter The Future. And When You Want To Change Something ... You Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Change
Past
Two
When You Write A Play, You Make A Set Of Assumptions -- That You Have Something To Say, That You Know How To Say It, That Its Worth Saying, And That Maybe Someone Will Come Along For The Ride.
Writing
Play
Assumption
Good Writers Define Reality; Bad Ones Merely Restate It.
Book
Writing
Reality
I Think That's Foolishness On The Part Of The Playwright To Write About Himself. People Don't Know Anything About Themselves.
Writing
Thinking
People
In The Theater, Which Is A Sort Of Jungle, One Does Have To Be A Little Bit Careful. One Mustn't Be So Rigid Or Egotistical To Think That Every Comma Is Sacrosanct. But At The Same Time There Is The Danger Of Losing Control And Finding That Somebody Else Has Opened A Play And Not You.
Thinking
Losing Control
Play
The Greatest Problem With Irish Wolfhounds, Though, Is That They Don't Live Very Long: Their Great Hearts Give Out. A Good Deal Of This Is Genetic, Of Course, But I Think It Is In Part That They Worry So For Us, Care So Much.
Heart
Thinking
Long
Martha: Oh, I Like Your Anger. I Think That's What I Like About You Most. Your Anger.
Thinking
A Writer Is A Controlled Schizophrenic.
Schizophrenic
Controlled
The Final Evaluation Of A Play Has Nothing To Do With Immediate Audience Or Critical Response.
Play
Finals
Evaluation
Curiously Enough, The Only Two Plays That I've Done Very Much Revision On Were The Two Adaptations - Even Though The Shape Of Them Was Pretty Much Determined By The Original Work. With My Own Plays, The Only Changes, Aside From Taking A Speech Out Here, Putting One In There (if I Thought I Dwelled On A Point A Little Too Long Or Didn't Make It Explicit Enough), Are Very Minor; But Even Though They're Very Minor - Having To Do With The Inability Of Actors Or The Unwillingness Of The Director To Go Along With Me - I've Always Regretted Them.
Play
Two
Long
I Think It's For The Critics To Decide Whether Or Not Their Loathing Of The Play Is Based On Something Other Than The Play's Merits Or Demerits. They Must Search Their Own Souls, Or Whatever.
Thinking
Play
Soul
A Rather Ugly Thing Starts Happening: The Playwright Finds Himself Knocked Down For Works That Quite Often Are Just As Good Or Better Than The Works He's Been Praised For Previously. And A Lot Of Playwrights Become Confused By This And They Start Doing Imitations Of What They've Done Before, Or They Try To Do Something Entirely Different, In Which Case They Get Accused By The Same Critics Of Not Doing What They Used To Do So Well.
Confused
Ugly Things
Trying
I Think It Is The Responsibility Of Critics To Rely Less Strenuously On, To Use A Hollywood Phrase, "what They Can Live With," And More On An Examination Of The Works Of Art From An Aesthetic And Clinical Point Of View.
Art
Responsibility
Thinking
Martha: Truth Or Illusion, George; You Don't Know The Difference. George: No, But We Must Carry On As Though We Did. Martha: Amen.
Differences
Illusion
Amen
In The Thirties A Whole School Of Criticism Bogged Down Intellectually In Those Agitprop, Social-realistic Days. A Play Had To Be Progressive. A Number Of Plays By Playwrights Who Were Thought Very Highly Of Then - They Were Very Bad Playwrights - Were Highly Praised Because Their Themes Were Intellectually And Politically Proper. This Intellectual Morass Is Very Dangerous, It Seems To Me. A Form Of Censorship.
School
Play
Numbers
I Suspect That The Theme, The Nature Of The Characters, And The Method Of Getting From The Beginning Of The Play To The End Is Already Established In The Unconscious.
Character
Play
Ends
By Some Curious Mischance, A Couple Of My Plays Managed To Hit An Area Where Commercial Success Was Feasible. But It's Wrong To Think I'm A Commercial Playwright Who Has Somehow Ceased His Proper Function. I Have Always Been The Same Thing - Which Is Not A Commercial Playwright. I'm Not After The Brass Ring.
Couple
Thinking
Play
Some Writers' View Of Things Depends Upon The Success Of The Final Result. I'd Rather Stand Or Fall On My Own Concepts. But There Is A Fine Line To Be Drawn Between Pointing Up Something Or Distorting It.
Fall
Views
Finals
It Always Seems To Me Better To Slough Off The Answer To A Question That I Consider To Be A Terrible Invasion Of Privacy - The Kind Of Privacy That A Writer Must Keep For Himself.
Answers
Invasion
Privacy
A Play Is Fiction And Fiction Is Fact Distilled Into Truth.
Truth
Play
Fiction
The Only Time I'll Get Good Reviews Is If I Kill Myself.
Reviews
Ifs
Only Time
There May Be Lots Of Questions That Anybody - An Actor Or A Director Or Anybody - Can Ask About A Character In A Play Of Mine That Are Not Answered In The Play, But If It's A Question That I Don't Think Is Relevant, I Don't Bother About It. There's No Reason To Ask It.
Character
Thinking
Play
I'm Not Responsible For The Commercialization. The People Who Produce The Plays Are Responsible For It.
Play
People
Responsible
I Discover That I Am Thinking About A Play, Which Is The First Awareness I Have That A New Play Is Forming. When I'm Aware Of The Play Forming In My Head, It's Already At A Certain Degree In Development.
Thinking
Play
Degrees
There Are Lots Of Young Vital Playwrights Who Are Experimenting, And These Are The Plays That People Who Are Interested In The Theatre Should See. They Should Go Off Broadway. They Should Go To The Cafe Theatres And See The Experiments That Are Being Made.
Play
People
Theatre
In Rehearsals I Get So Completely Wrapped Up With The Reality That's Occurring On Stage That By The Time The Play Has Opened I'm Not Usually Quite As Aware Of The Distinctions Between What I'd Intended And The Result. There Are Many Ways Of Getting The Same Result.
Reality
Play
Rehearsal
And The West, Encumbered By Crippling Alliances, And Hardened With A Morality Too Rigid To Accommodate Itself To The Swing Of Events, Must ..... Eventually ..... Fall.
Fall
Swings
Events
I Stopped Acting When I Was About Nineteen, Twenty, When I Got Thrown Out Of College. I Did Act For About Ten Years. I Don't Know. I Suspect I'm Still A Reasonably Good Actor, But I Don't Really Know That I Want To Get On The Stage Again ... And Having To Say All Those Boring Words By Me Over And Over Again ... I Don't Know If I Want To Do That. Also, I Like A Certain Amount Of Freedom Of Movement, And If You're Acting, You're Stuck In One Place For A Long Time. Having Said That, I Will Probably Be Onstage Next Fall.
Fall
College
Years
I Know Playwrights Who Like To Kid Themselves Into Saying That Their Characters Are So Well Formed That They Just Take Over. They Determine The Structure Of The Play. By Which Is Meant, I Suspect, Only That The Unconscious Mind Has Done Its Work So Thoroughly That The Play Just Has To Be Filtered Through The Conscious Mind. But There's Work To Be Done - And Discovery To Be Made.
Character
Kids
Discovery
When People Don't Like The Way A Play Ends, They're Likely To Blame The Play.
Play
People
Way
To Write A Play One Must Be Born A Playwright. Otherwise, You're Starting At A Huge Disadvantage.
Writing
Play
Starting
Any Definition Which Limits Us Is Deplorable.
Definitions
Limits
The Arts Are The Only Things That Separate Us From The Other Animals. The Arts Are Not Decorative. ... They Are Essential To Our Comprehension Of Consciousness And Ourselves.
Art
Animal
Essentials
If The Playwright Is Strong Enough To Hold On To Reasonable Objectivity In The Face Of Either Hostility Or Praise, He'll Do His Work The Way He Was Going To Anyway.
Strong
Objectivity
Way
Remember One Thing About Democracy. We Can Have Anything We Want And At The Same Time, We Always End Up With Exactly What We Deserve.
Time
Democracy
Politics
If You Examine The History Of Any Playwright Of The Past Twenty - Five Or Thirty Years - I'm Not Talking About The Comedy Boys, I'm Talking About The More Serious Writers - It Seems Inevitable That Almost Every One Has Been Encouraged Until The Critics Feel That They Have Built Them Up Beyond The Point Where They Can Control Them; Then It's Time To Knock Them Down Again.
Past
Boys
Talking
The Avant-garde Theater Is Fun; It Is Free-wheeling, Bold, Iconoclastic, And Often Wildly, Wildly Funny. If You Will Approach It With Childlike Innocence -- Putting Your Standard Responses Aside, For They Do Not Apply -- If You Will Approach It On Its Own Terms, I Think You Will Be In For A Liberating Surprise. I Think You May No Longer Be Content With Plays That You Can't Remember Halfway Down The Block.
Fun
Block
Thinking
Sincerity Doesn't Mean Anything. A Person Can Be Sincere And Be More Destructive Than A Person Who Is Insincere.
Mean
Sincerity
Sincere
If You Want A Commercial Success - It's The Confusion Of Commerce With Art. A Successful Play Is Not Considered To Be The Best Written. It Is The One That Sells The Most Tickets. Those Standards Are Destructive [to Theatre].
Art
Successful
Play
When I Was Fifteen I Wrote Seven Hundred Pages Of An Incredibly Bad Novel - It's A Very Funny Book I Still Like A Lot. Then, When I Was Nineteen I Wrote A Couple Hundred Pages Of Another Novel, Which Wasn't Very Good Either. I Was Still Determined To Be A Writer. And Since I Was A Writer, And Here I Was Twenty-nine Years Old And I Wasn't A Very Good Poet And I Wasn't A Very Good Novelist, I Thought I Would Try Writing A Play, Which Seems To Have Worked Out A Little Better.
Couple
Book
Writing
The Act Of Creation, As You Very Well Know, Is A Lonely And Private Matter And Has Nothing To Do With The Public Area... The Performance Of The Work One Creates.
Lonely
Matter
Creation
I Don't Set Out To Write A Play A Year. Sometimes I've Written Two Plays A Year. There Was A Period Of A Year And Half When I Only Wrote Half A Play. If It Depresses Some Critics That I Seem Prolific, Well, That's Their Problem As Much As Mine.
Depressing
Writing
Play
Im Not Suggesting That The Play Is Without Fault; All Of My Plays Are Imperfect, Im Rather Happy To Say-it Leaves Me Something To Do.
Happiness
Play
Faults
I Think We Should All Live On The Precipe Of Life, As Fully And As Dangerously As Possible. Everyone Should Make The Assumption That They're Going Through Life Only Once. Tomorrow We Die. Why Not Take Chances, Extend Yourself? How Awful It Is When A Person Comes To The End Of Life Full Of Regret.
Regret
Thinking
Why Not
Every Monster Was A Man First.
Men
Monsters
Firsts
When One Controls Form, One Doesn't Do It With A Stopwatch Or A Graph. One Does It By Sensing, Again Intuitively.
Doe
Form
Graphs
If The Work Of Art Is Good Enough, It Must Not Be Criticized For Its Theme. I Don't Think It Can Be Argued.
Art
Thinking
Good Enough
There Are Only Two Things To Write About: Life And Death.
Writing
Two
Life And Death
If You're Willing To Fail Interestingly, You Tend To Succeed Interestingly.
Inspirational
Motivational
Success
American Critics Are Like American Universities. They Both Have Dull And Half-dead Faculties.
Inspirational
Education
Half
If I've Been Accused A Number Of Times Of Writing Plays Where The Endings Are Ambivalent, Indeed, That's The Way I Find Life.
Writing
Play
Numbers
Some Things That Make Sense To Me Don't Make The Same Degree Of Sense To Other People.
People
Degrees
Make Sense
Usually, The Way I Write Is To Sit Down At A Typewriter After That Year Or So Of What Passes For Thinking, And I Write A First Draft Quite Rapidly. Read It Over. Make A Few Pencil Corrections, Where I Think I've Got The Rhythms Wrong In The Speeches, For Example, And Then Retype The Whole Thing. And In The Retyping I Discover That Maybe One Or Two More Speeches Will Come In. One Or Two More Things Will Happen, But Not Much.
Writing
Thinking
Typewriters
Each Time I Sit Down And Write A Play I Try To Dismiss From My Mind As Much As I Possibly Can The Implications Of What I've Done Before, What I'm Going To Do, What Other People Think About My Work, The Failure Or Success Of The Previous Play. I'm Stuck With A New Reality That I've Got To Create.
Writing
Reality
Thinking
A Lot Of People Are Confused By "hello." A Lot Of People Are Confused By A Lot Of Things They Shouldn't Be Confused By.
Confused
People
Hello
The Health Of A Nation, A Society, Can Be Determined By The Art It Demands. We Have Insisted Of Television And Our Movies That They Not Have Anything To Do With Anything, That They Be Our Never-never Land; And If We Demand This Same Function Of Our Live Theatre, What Will Be Left Of The Visual-auditory Arts - Save The Dance (in Which Nobody Talks) And Music (to Which Nobody Listens)?
Art
Land
Live Theatre
As A Playwright, I Imagine That In One Fashion Or Another I've Been Influenced By Every Single Play I've Ever Experienced.
Fashion
Play
Imagine
I Have Learned That Neither Kindness Or Cruelty By Themselves, Or Independent Of Each Other, Create Any Effect Beyond Themselves.
Kindness
Independent
Cruelty
Within A Year After I Write A Play I Forget The Experience Of Having Written It. And I Couldn't Revise Or Rewrite It If I Wanted To. Up Until That Point, I'm So Involved With The Experience Of Having Written The Play, And The Nature Of It, That I Can't See What Faults It Might Have. The Only Moment Of Clear Objectivity That I Can Find Is At The Moment Of Critical Heat - Of Self-critical Heat When I'm Actually Writing.
Writing
Self
Objectivity
In A Democracy You Cannot Stop Public Access To That Art That Will Most Misinform The People. You Cannot Stop People From Being Misinformed. But What You Can Do Is To Educate The People To The Point That They Will Throw The Rascals Out.
Art
People
Democracy
I Think I Sit Down To The Typewriter When It's Time To Sit Down To The Typewriter. That Isn't To Suggest That When I Do Finally Sit Down At The Typewriter, And Write Out My Plays With A Speed That Seems To Horrify All My Detractors And Half Of My Well-wishers, That There's No Work Involved. It Is Hard Work, And One Is Doing All The Work Oneself.
Hard Work
Writing
Thinking
I Don't Feel That Catharsis In A Play Necessarily Takes Place During The Course Of A Play. Often It Should Take Place Afterward.
Play
Catharsis
Should
I Write To Find Out What I'm Talking About.
Writing
Talking
True, I Don't Begin With An Idea For A Play - A Thesis, In Other Words, To Construct The Play Around. But I Know A Good Deal About The Nature Of The Characters. I Know A Great Deal About Their Environment. And I More Or Less Know What Is Going To Happen In The Play.
Character
Play
Ideas
I Find Relatively Little Relationship Between The Work Of Art And The Immediate Critical Response It Gets.
Art
Littles
Response
Art Is Nowhere Near As Dangerous As It Should Be.
Art
Should
Dangerous
Sometimes I Think The Experience Of A Play Is Finished For Me When I Finish Writing It. If It Weren't For The Need To Make A Living, I Don't Know Whether I'd Have The Plays Produced.
Writing
Thinking
Play
My Sense Of Reality And Logic Is Different From Most People's.
Reality
People
Different
Do You Know What A Playwright Is? A Playwright Is Someone Who Lets His Guts Hang Out On The Stage.
Stage
Playwriting
Hanging Out
The Ultimate Judgment Of A Work Of Art, Whether It Be A Masterpiece Or A Lesser Event, Must Be Solely In Terms Of Its Artistic Success And Not On Freudian Guesswork.
Art
Events
Judgment
Unless You Are Terribly, Terribly Careful, You Run The Danger-- Without Even Knowing It Is Happening To You-- Of Slipping Into The Fatal Error Of Reflecting The Public Taste Instead Of Creating It. Your Responsibility Is To The Public Consciousness, Not To The Public View Of Itself.
Running
Responsibility
Errors
I Don't Pay Much Attention To How The Plays Relate Thematically To Each Other. I Think That's Very Dangerous To Do, Because In The Theater One Is Self-conscious Enough Without Planning Ahead Or Wondering About The Thematic Relation From One Play To The Next. One Hopes That One Is Developing, And Writing Interestingly, And That's Where It Should End, I Think.
Writing
Thinking
Self
If You Intellectualize And Examine The Creative Process Too Carefully It Can Evaporate And Vanish. It's Not Only Terribly Difficult To Talk About, It's Also Dangerous.
Creative
Process
Dangerous
The Characters' Lives Have Gone On Before The Moment You Chose To Have The Action Of The Play Begin. And Their Lives Are Going To Go On After You Have Lowered The Final Curtain On The Play, Unless You've Killed Them Off.
Character
Play
Finals
I Am Not Interested In Living In A City Where There Isn't A Production By Samuel Beckett Running.
Running
Cities
Beckett
Writing Should Be Useful. If It Can’t Instruct People A Little Bit More About The Responsibilities Of Consciousness, There’s No Point In Doing It.
Writing
Responsibility
People
One Must Let The Play Happen To One; One Must Let The Mind Loose To Respond As It Will, To Receive Impressions, To Sense Rather Than Know, To Gather Rather Than Immediately Understand.
Fun
Play
Mind
I Think You Remember Everything ... You Just Can't Bring It To Mind All The Time.
Memories
Thinking
Remembers Everything
The Thing That Makes A Creative Person Is To Be Creative And That Is All There Is To It.
Art
Creative
Theatre
I Have Been Both Overpraised And Underpraised. I Assume By The Time I Finish Writing -- And I Plan To Go On Writing Until I'm 90 Or Gaga -- It Will All Equal Itself Out.
Writing
Goes On
Assuming
The Playwright, Along With Any Writer, Composer, Painter In This Society, Has Got To Have A Terribly Private View Of His Own Value, Of His Own Work. He's Got To Listen To His Own Voice Primarily. He's Got To Watch Out For Fads, For What Might Be Called The Critical Aesthetics.
Voice
Views
Might
I've Seen An Awful Lot Of Plays That I'd Read Before They Were Put Into Production And Been Shocked By What's Happened To Them. In The Attempt To Make Them Straightforward And Commercially Successful, A Lot Of Things Go Out The Window.
Successful
Play
Awful
I Imagine As An Axiom You Could Say That The Better The Play, The Less "creativity" The Director Need Exert.
Creativity
Play
Directors
I Created Myself, And I'll Attack Anybody I Feel Like.
Feels
The Most Profound Indication Of Social Malignancy ... No Sense Of Humor. None Of The Monoliths Could Take A Joke.
Humor
Profound
Social
The Condition Of The Theater Is Always An Accurate Measure Of The Cultural Health Of A Nation. A Play Always Exists In The Present Tense (if It Is A Valuable One), And Its Music -- Its Special Noise -- Is Always Contemporary. The Most Valuable Function Of The Theater As An Art Form Is To Tell Us Who We Are, And The Health Of The Theater Is Determined By How Much Of That We Want To Know.
Art
Play
Special
Art Should Never Try To Be Popular.
Art
Trying
Should
I Don't Like The Climate In Which Writers Have To Work In The Usa And I Think It's My Responsibility To Talk About It.
Responsibility
Thinking
Usa
Art Has An Obligation To Offend
Art
Obligation
As A Fairly Objective Judgment, I Do Think That My Plays As They Come Out Are Better Than Most Other Things That Are Put On The Same Year. But That Doesn't Make Them Very Good Necessarily.
Thinking
Years
Play
It Is A Lazy Public Which Promotes A Slothful And Irresponsible Theater.
Lazy
Theater
Irresponsible
Everybody Wants To Go See The Big Hit [at The Theatre]. Not Because It's Any Good. Because It's The Big Hit And Everybody Wants To Be Able To Talk About The Big Hit.
Theatre
Want
Able
The Difference Between Critics And Audiences Is That One Is A Group Of Humans And One Is Not.
Differences
Editors
Groups
Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
Virginia
Woolf
I Find That In The Course Of The Day When I'm Writing, After Three Or Four Hours Of Intense Work, I Have A Splitting Headache, And I Have To Stop. Because The Involvement, Which Is Both Creative And Self-critical, Is So Intense That I've Got To Stop Doing It.
Writing
Self
Creative
Every Writer's Got To Pay Some Attention, I Suppose, To What His Critics Say Because Theirs Is A Reflection Of What The Audience Feels About His Work.
Reflection
Attention
Pay
I Am A Doctor. A.b... M.a... Ph.d... Abmaphid! Abmaphid Has Been Variously Described As A Wasting Disease Of The Frontal Lobes, And As A Wonder Drug. It Is Actually Both.
Doctors
Drug
Disease
When You Get Old, You Can't Talk To People Because People Snap At You.... That's Why You Become Deaf, So You Won't Be Able To Hear People Talking To You That Way.
Talking
People
Able
You May Dislike The Intention Enormously But Your Judgment Of The Artistic Merit Of The Work Must Not Be Based On Your View Of What It's About. The Work Of Art Must Be Judged By How Well It Succeeds In Its Intention.
Art
Views
May
Very Few People Who Met My Adoptive Mother In The Last 20 Years Of Her Life Could Abide Her, While Many People Who Have Seen My Play Find Her Fascinating. Heavens, What Have I Done?!
Mother
Years
Play
I’m Infinitely More Involved In The Reality Of The Characters And Their Situation Than I Am In Everyday Life.
Character
Reality
Everyday
Naturally, No Writer Who's Any Good At All Would Sit Down And Put A Sheet Of Paper In A Typewriter And Start Typing A Play Unless He Knew What He Was Writing About.
Writing
Typewriters
Play
I Said I Was Impressed, Martha. I'm Beside Myself With Jealousy. What Do You Want Me To Do, Throw Up?
Want
Said
Impressed
School Curricula That Ignore The Arts Produce Highly Educated Barbarians
Music
Art
School
Dashed Hopes And Good Intentions. Good, Better, Best, Bested.
Good Intentions
Intention
I Am Sick Of The Disparity Between Things As They Are And As They Should Be. I'm Tired.i'm Tired Of The Truth And I'm Tired Of Lying About The Truth.
Lying
Tired
Sick
One Has Always Got To Be Terribly Careful, Since The Theater Is Made Up Of A Whole Bunch Of Prima Donnas, Not To Let The Distortions Occur.
Made
Theater
Distortion
Few Sensible Authors Are Happy Discussing The Creative Process--it Is, After All, Black Magic.
Creative
Black
Magic
The Government Is Far More Interested In Taking, In Regulated Taking, Than In Promoting Spontaneous Generosity.
Government
Generosity
Spontaneous
It Is Not Enough To Hold The Line Against The Dark. It Is Your Responsibility To Lead Into The Light. People Don't Like The Light--it Reveals Too Much. But Hand In Hand With The Creative Artist, You Can Lead People Into The Wisdom That Is Known To All Other Animals: Simply, That It Is The Dark We Have To Fear.
Responsibility
Dark
Artist
If A Man Writes A Brilliant Enough Play In Praise Of Something That Is Universally Loathed, The Play, If It Is Good And Well Enough Written, Should Not Be Knocked Down Because Of Its Approach To Its Subject.
Writing
Men
Play
George, Who Is Out Somewhere There In The Dark, Who Is Good To Me - Whom I Revile, Who Can Keep Learning The Games We Play As Quickly As I Can Change Them. Who Can Make Me Happy And I Do Not Wish To Be Happy. And Yes, I Do Wish To Be Happy. George And Martha: Sad, Sad, Sad. Whom I Will Not Forgive For Having Come To Rest; For Having Seen Me And Having Said: “yes, This Will Do”. Who Has Made The Hideous, The Hurting, The Insulting Mistake Of Loving… Me, And Must Be Punished For It. George And Martha… Sad, Sad, Sad.
Hurt
Mistake
Dark
Your Source Material Is The People You Know, Not Those You Don't Know, But Every Character Is An Extension Of The Author's Own Personality.
Writing
Character
People
When A Critic Sets Himself Up As An Arbiter Of Morality, A Judge Of The Matter And Not The Manner Of A Work, He Is No Longer A Critic; He Is A Censor.
Judging
Matter
Morality
I Do Not Invent Characters. There They Are. That's Who They Are. That's Their Nature. They Talk And They Behave The Way They Want To Behave. I Don't Have A Character Behaving One Way, Then A Point Comes In The Play Where The Person Has To Either Stay Or Leave. If I Had It Plotted That The Person Leaves, Then The Person Leaves. If That's What The Person Wants To Do. I Let The Person Do What The Person Wants Or Has To Do At The Time Of The Event.
Character
Play
Events
You Find Very Few Critics Who Approach Their Job With A Combination Of Information And Enthusiasm And Humility That Makes For A Good Critic. But There Is Nothing Wrong With Critics As Long As People Don't Pay Any Attention To Them. I Mean, Nobody Wants To Put Them Out Of A Job And A Good Critic Is Not Necessarily A Dead Critic. It's Just That People Take What A Critic Says As A Fact Rather Than An Opinion, And You Have To Know Whether The Opinion Of The Critic Is Informed Or Uninformed, Intelligent Of Stupid -- But Most People Don't Take The Trouble.
Jobs
Stupid
Mean
The Function Of Art Is To Bring People Into Greater Touch With Reality, And Yet Our Movie Houses And Family Rooms Are Jammed With People After As Much Reality-removal As They Can Get.
Art
Reality
People
What Happens In A Play Is Determined To A Certain Extent By What I Thought Might Be Interesting To Have Happen Before I Invented The Characters, Before They Started Taking Over What Happened, Because They Are Three-dimensional Individuals, And I Cannot Tell Them What To Do. Once I Give Them Their Identity And Their Nature, They Start Writing The Play.
Writing
Character
Play
Careers Are Funny Things. They Begin Mysteriously And, Just As Mysteriously, They Can End.
Funny Things
Careers
Ends
Musical Beds Is The Faculty Sport Around Here.
Sports
Musical
Bed
A Play Is A Parenthesis That Contains All The Material You Think Has To Be Contained For The Action Of The Play. Where Do You End That? Where The Characters Seem To Come To A Pause... Where They Seem To Want To Stop - Rather Like, I Would Think, The Construction Of A Piece Of Music.
Character
Thinking
Play
You Gotta Have Swine To Show You Where The Truffles Are.
Truffles
Swine
Shows
If You Have No Wounds, How Can You Know If You're Alive?
Alive
Knows
Ifs
There Are A Number Of Contemporary Playwrights Whom I Admire Enormously, But That's Not At All The Same Thing As Being Influenced.
Numbers
Admire
Playwright
There Are Two Things That A Playwright Can Have. Success Or Failure. I Imagine There Are Dangers In Both. Certainly The Danger Of Being Faced With Indifference Or Hostility Is Discouraging, And It May Be That Success - Acceptance If It's Too Quick, Too Lightning-quick - Can Turn The Heads Of Some People.
Acceptance
Two
People
All Plays Are Social Comment To One Extent Or Another.
Play
Social
Comment
About Four Years Ago I Made A List, For My Own Amusement, Of The Playwrights, The Contemporary Playwrights, By Whom Critics Said I'd Been Influenced. I Listed Twenty-five. It Included Five Playwrights Whose Work I Didn't Know, So I Read These Five Playwrights And Indeed Now I Suppose I Can Say I Have Been Influenced By Them. The Problem Is That The People Who Write These Articles Find The Inevitable Similarities Of People Writing In The Same Generation, In The Same Century, And On The Same Planet, And They Put Them Together In A Group.
Writing
Years
People
Anything You Put In A Play -- Any Speech -- Has Got To Do One Of Two Things: Either Define Character Or Push The Action Of The Play Along.
Character
Play
Two
I Swear, If You Existed I'd Divorce You.
Divorce
Swear
Ifs
Good Writers Define Reality; Bad Ones Merely Restate It. A Good Writer Turns Fact Into Truth; A Bad Writer Will, More Often Than Not, Accomplish The Opposite.
Truth
Writing
Reality
There's Always The Danger That There Are So Damn Many Things That A Playwright Can Examine In This Society Of Ours - Things That Have Less To Do With His Artistic Work Than Have To Do With The Critical And Aesthetic Environment - That Perhaps He Does Have To Worry About Whether Or Not He Is Writing Too Fast. But Then Also, Perhaps He Should Worry About Getting As Many Plays On As Possible Before The Inevitable Ax Falls.
Fall
Writing
Play
When I'm Writing A Play I Hear It Like Music. I Use The Same Indications That A Composer Does For Duration. There's A Difference, I Tell My Students, Between A Semi-colon And A Period. A Difference In Duration. And We Have All These Wonderful Things, We Use Commas And Underlining And All The Wonderful Punctuation Things We Can Use In The Same Way A Composer Uses Them In Music. And We Can Indicate, As Specifically As A Composer, The Way We Want Our Piece To Sound.
Writing
Play
Differences
What People Really Want In The Theater Is Fantasy Involvement And Not Reality Involvement.
Reality
People
Want
I'm Back In Fashion Again For A While Now. But I Imagine That Three Or Four Years From Now I'll Be Out Again. And In Another Fifteen Years I'll Be Back. If You Try To Write To Stay In Fashion, If You Try To Write To Be The Critics' Darling, You Become An Employee.
Fashion
Writing
Years
What I Wanted To Get At Is The Value Difference Between Pornographic Playing-cards When You're A Kid, And Pornographic Playing-cards When You're Older. It's That When You're A Kid You Use The Cards As A Substitute For A Real Experience, And When You're Older You Use Real Experience As A Substitute For The Fantasy.
Real
Kids
Differences
To A Certain Extent I Imagine A Play Is Completely Finished In My Mind - In My Case, At Any Rate - Without My Knowing It, Before I Sit Down To Write.
Writing
Play
Knowing
Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf Means Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf ... Who's Afraid Of Living Life Without False Illusions.
Live Life
Mean
Virginia
In The Two Or Three Or Four Months That It Takes Me To Write A Play, I Find That The Reality Of The Play Is A Great Deal More Alive For Me Than What Passes For Reality. I'm Infinitely More Involved In The Reality Of The Characters And Their Situation Than I Am In Everyday Life. The Involvement Is Terribly Intense.
Writing
Character
Reality
What I Mean By An Educated Taste Is Someone Who Has The Same Tastes That I Have.
Mean
Taste
Educated
I Don't Like Symbolism That Hits You Over The Head. A Symbol Should Not Be A Cymbal.
Symbolism
Cymbals
Should
I Suppose If You Simplify Things, It's Going To Make It Easier To Understand.
Easier
Simplify
Ifs
You Want To Dance With Me, Angel Tits?
Angel
Want
Influence Is A Matter Of Selection - Both Acceptance And Rejection.
Acceptance
Rejection
Matter
I Do Think, Or Rather I Sense That There Is A Relationship - At Least In My Own Work - Between A Dramatic Structure, The Form And Sound And Shape Of A Play, And The Equivalent Structure In Music. Both Deal With Sound, Of Course, And Also With Idea, Theme.
Thinking
Play
Ideas
A Playwright, Especially A Playwright Whose Work Deals Very Directly With An Audience, Perhaps He Should Pay Some Attention To The Nature Of The Audience Response - Not Necessarily To Learn Anything About His Craft, But As Often As Not Merely To Find Out About The Temper Of The Time, What Is Being Tolerated, What Is Being Permitted.
Attention
Crafts
Pay
The Responsibility Of The Writer Is To Be A Sort Of Demonic Social Critic -- To Present The World And People In It As He Sees It And Say, "do You Like It? If You Don't Like It, Change It.
Writing
Responsibility
People
A Lot Interests Me - But Nothing Surprises Me Particularly.
Surprise
Interest
Surprise Me
All Serious Art Is Being Destroyed By Commerce. Most People Don't Want Art To Be Disturbing. They Want It To Be Escapist. I Don't Think Art Should Be Escapist. That's A Waste Of Time.
Art
Thinking
People
I Find That When My Plays Are Going Well, They Seem To Resemble Pieces Of Music. But If I Had To Go Into Specifics About It, I Wouldn't Be Able To. It's Merely Something That I Feel.
Play
Pieces
Able
I Have A Fine Sense Of The Ridiculous, But No Sense Of Humor.
Inspirational
Funny
Humor
I Usually Think About A Play Anywhere From Six Months To A Year And A Half Before I Sit Down To Write It Out.
Writing
Thinking
Years
Creativity Is Magic. Don't Examine It Too Closely.
Creativity
Magic
When You're Dealing With A Symbol In A Realistic Play, It Is Also A Realistic Fact. You Must Expect The Audience's Mind To Work On Both Levels, Symbolically And Realistically. But We're Trained So Much In Pure, Realistic Theater That It's Difficult For Us To Handle Things On Two Levels At The Same Time.
Play
Two
Mind
First, I'll Kill The Dog With Kindness, And If That Doesn't Work, I'll Just Kill Him.
Dog
Kindness
Firsts
There Is Chaos Behind The Civility, Of Course.
Chaos
Clarity
Civility
I Think I Was Probably Wondering, Having Looked At Human Beings For A Long Time, Wondering If Evolution Ever Took Place. And I Still Have My Doubts.
Thinking
Long
Doubt
Death Is Release, If You've Lived All Right.
Death
Release
Ifs
The Act Of Writing Is An Act Of Optimism. You Would Not Take The Trouble To Do It If You Felt That It Didn't Matter.
Writing
Optimism
Matter
A Playwright Has A Responsibility In His Society Not To Aid It, Or Comfort It, But To Comment And Criticize It.
Responsibility
Comfort
Aids
Progress Is A Set Of Assumptions.
Progress
Assumption
The One Living Playwright I Admire Without Any Reservation Whatsoever Is Samuel Beckett. I Have Funny Feelings About Almost All The Others.
Feelings
Having Fun
Reservations
Arthur Miller Once Payed Me A Great Compliment Saying That My Plays Were 'necessary.' I Will Go One Step Further And Say That Arthur's Plays Are 'essential'
Play
Essentials
Steps
You're Alive Only Once, As Far As We Know, And What Could Be Worse Than Getting To The End Of Your Life And Realizing You Hadn't Lived It?
Alive
Realizing
Ends
I Am Pleased And Reassured By The Fact That A Lot Of Younger Playwrights Seem To Pay Me Some Attention And Gain Some Nourishment From What I Do.
Attention
Pay
Gains
Being Different Is ... Interesting; There's Nothing Implicitly Inferior Or Superior About It. Great Difference, Of Course, Produces Natural Caution; And If The Differences Are Too Extreme ... Well, Then, Reality Tends To Fade Away.
Reality
Differences
Interesting
Well, When I Was Six Years Old I Decided, Not That I Was Going To Be, But With My Usual Modesty, That I Was A Writer.
Years
Usual
Six Year Olds
Well, When You Write About People Of A Certain Age ... We Are In A Postsexual Situation. If I Write About Younger People Then I Write Sexually, Because Their Drive Is Sexual. It Depends Upon The Circumstances.
Writing
People
Age
Writing Has Got To Be An Act Of Discovery....i Write To Find Out What I'm Thinking About.
Writing
Thinking
Discovery
It's The Function Of A Playwright To Write. Some Playwrights Write A Large Number Of Plays, Some Write A Small Number.
Writing
Small Numbers
Play
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