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Quotes by Playwright
"One-half of life is luck; the other half is discipline - and that's the important half, for without discipline you wouldn't know what to do with luck."
"As society diversifies, the number of people who read literature is decreasing. It will be difficult for readers to digest my ideas through literature."
"The worst thing about this war is the chance it gives these dreadful little persons, the chance to make themselves important."
"But when I came back into the city for the first time last November, I thought every truck, every building was going to blow up. It has truly changed me something fierce."
"I am not sure why, but I have been obsessed by the Atom Bomb ever since it first happened."
"I am one of the 11.5% of New Yorkers who remain traumatized by the events of September 11."
"As soon as white folks say a play's good, the theater is jammed with blacks and whites."
"Jazz in itself is not struggling. That is, the music itself is not struggling... It's the attitude that's in trouble. My plays insist that we should not forget or toss away our history."
"I know some things when I start. I know, let's say, that the play is going to be a 1970s or a 1930s play, and it's going to be about a piano, but that's it. I slowly discover who the characters are as I go along."
Play,
"I first got involved in theater in 1968, at the height of a social tumult. I was a poet."
"For me, the original play becomes an historical document: This is where I was when I wrote it, and I have to move on now to something else."
"Between speeches and awards, you can find something to do every other week. It's hard to write. Your focus gets splintered. Once you put one thing in your calendar, that month is gone."
"All you need in the world is love and laughter. That's all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other."
"Blacks have traditionally had to operate in a situation where whites have set themselves up as the custodians of the black experience."
"Unmarried couples should get married - that's an excellent tax avoidance measure, if a bit drastic."
"PAYE means pay as you earn but it could also mean Pretty Accurate Yet Estimated."
"When a man's mind rides faster than his horse can gallop they quickly both tire."
"We are merely the stars tennis-balls, struck and bandied which way please them."
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"Though lust do masque in ne'er so strange disguise she's oft found witty, but is never wise."
"Man is most happy, when his own actions are arguments and examples of his virtue."
"Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, like diamonds we are cut with our own dust."
"When I go to hell, I mean to carry a bribe: for look you, good gifts evermore make way for the worst persons."
"Integrity of life is fame's best friend, which nobly, beyond death, shall crown in the end."
"In all our quest of greatness, like wanton boys, whose pastime is their care, we follow after bubbles, blown in the air."
"Heaven fashioned us of nothing; and we strive to bring ourselves to nothing."
"Fortune's a right whore. If she give ought, she deals it in small parcels, that she may take away all at one swoop."
"For the subtlest folly proceeds from the subtlest wisdom."
"Eagles commonly fly alone. They are crows, daws, and starlings that flock together."
"A politician is the devil's quilted anvil; He fashions all sins on him, and the blows are never heard."
"That friend a great man's ruin strongly checks, who rails into his belief all his defects."
"Lay this unto your breast: Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best."
"God made man in his own image, and man returned the favour."
"Any fool can have bad luck; the art consists in knowing how to exploit it."
"Being a grownup means assuming responsibility for yourself, for your children, and - here's the big curve - for your parents."
"The real reason for comedy is to hide the pain."
"Don't live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable."
"Sometimes I want to clean up my desk and go out and say, respect me, I'm a respectable grown-up, and other times I just want to jump into a paper bag and shake and bake myself to death."
"The United States form a young republic, a confederacy which ought ever to be cemented by a union of interests and affection, under the influence of those principles which obtained their independence."
"The bulk of mankind have indeed, in all countries in their turn, been made the prey of ambition."
"The defeat of the Americans in Canada and the advantages gained by the British arms in the Jerseys, and indeed for some months in every other quarter, gave to the royal cause an air of triumph."
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