Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Quote”
Theresa Rebeck’s career is a case study in being fearless. I came across this interview with her where she discusses just that: “Go Back and Reread Machiavelli” Rebeck has never been one to shy away from a challenge, and it shows. In addition to being an award-winning writer, she was named one of Newsweek’s “150 Fearless Women in the World” …
An LA Times interview with playwright Rajiv Joseph, author of “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo,” yields his very interesting thoughts on playwriting as translation. The following is an excerpt: “Writing, it seems to me, can translate the unknown into the known, the mysterious into the lucid, the abstract into the concrete. And even if it doesn’t, a writer can …
I think a lot about how much I love theatre, and why that is. Playwright Jiehae Park gets at one of the big reasons: the audience’s requirement to be present. “Being in the life that I lead, I think I can be sort of half present. I’ll be watching TV and on my laptop at the same time. Or at …
“I don’t believe in it (writer’s block). All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don’t get plumber’s block, and doctors don’t get doctor’s block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it?” ~Philip …
Kingsley Amis was a prolific poet, essayist, screenwriter, and novelist who burst onto the literary scene as the original Angry Young Man with his book, “Lucky Jim.” But Amis might be better described as disgruntled or crabby rather than angry. This is largely due to his anarchical humor. In his later career, Amis dabbled in science fiction and is noted …
“Drink plenty of tea.” I came across this flavorful bit of advice for playwrights from Sarah Ruhl, from a 2011 interview on The Days of Yore: “It’s a lonely life. Make friends with other playwrights. They are, after all, the best sort of people as they like to be alone and they also like to be with other people so …
One of my favorite inspirational sayings is: “You don’t have to go fast. You just have to go.” I recently read that poet William Wordsworth composed most of his poems while walking through meadows, moors, and mountains. He rambled in every kind of weather and all over Europe. In fact, a friend calculated that he had walked 180,000 miles in …
I’ve begun reading a paper called “Hamlet’s Blackberry,” by William Powers. In it, Powers tackles the current illusion of importance we all maintain by remaining very busy. He points out the dilemma we face: busyness doesn’t create happiness. “We tend to think of life in outward terms, as a series of events that unfold in the physical world we all …
Need a little inspiration for your writing day? Try this quotation by Pulitzer Prizewinner Suzi-Lori Parks. “The writer has two kinds of faith: actual writing and sitting openly. Have faith in your personal effort or sweat. And faith in God, or whatever you want to call it. Then the voices will come. Faith is the big deal.” ― Suzan-Lori Parks …
The Latin phrase “Solvitur Ambulando” means “It is solved by walking,” and is attributed to Diogenes. Walking? “What problems have ever been solved by walking?” you may ask. Walking is decidedly low-tech and not particularly glamorous. Nothing could be more simple for those of us lucky enough to be ambulatory. Walking is so boring that the word for a person …