Playwrights From The United States

"The biggest limitations are the ones we place on ourselves, and opportunities rise up to meet the unique offerings of people."

"I wipe away all the unpleasantness of the day, of the people, of the city, whatever. We have it in our power to overcome assholes, and I think we have them thrown into our path to see if we have the chops to handle them."

"I can’t tell you how encouraging a thing like this is. The first film that I was ever in was in 1915, and here we are, and it’s 1969. Actually, I don’t know why it took me so long, though I don’t think, you know, that I’m backward. Anyway, thank you Bill, thank you Bob, thank you Roman and thank you Mia, and thank all of you who voted for me."

"Work on yourself. Believe in yourself. Show up! Support others! The bounty of the world will open up for you."

"The type of Negro oftenest depicted by modern fiction writers, is a genuine Southern production, a race of ante-bellum days-the simple-hearted, affectionate negro, who has no higher ambition than to serve faithfully the children of his former master. Isabel A. Mallon's story entitled, "The Colonel and Me," in the recent issue of the Ladies' Home Journal, is an example of this class of literature of which thinking Negroes are becoming heartily tired. While these stories occasionally interest, they never inspire the Negro reader, and besides, give the Anglo-Saxon reader false ideas concerning the race. It is praiseworthy to be a good servant, but all Negroes are not content to be merely hewers of wood and drawers of water. Out of the Negro race must come soldiers, statesmen, poets, authors, financiers and reformers, and fiction that is written with Negro men and women as heroes and heroines must keep these facts in mind...Another poem that appeals to all bold, courageous souls in "The Warning," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who, some critics aver, won more English hearts over to the anti-slavery cause than did the "Quaker Poet.""

"Sanchi could use money. It was the green and golden bridge to everything he wanted."

"She hadn’t been alive very long, but already she had an extensive list of things she hated, and topping it was being told what to do."

"She is as shallow as a leaf holding rainwater."

"“A mistake, however small,” said the dead wizard, “can be more deadly than a sword.”"

"To shrug was in effect his philosophy of life. Either you had the answer to a problem or you didn’t. If you did, bueno, you did. If you didn’t, you shrugged and waited to see if someone would come up with the answer for you."

"Accidents happen; clothing does not."

"Her instinct told her no, yet could she trust instincts? They were the products of man’s natural state, and there were few things as far removed from the natural as New York."

"There are always miracles where there are children, and fascination for any tale that opens their eyes to marvels, whether or not they are sensible marvels. Even a pig knows that."

"Sex is like the pursuit of wild mushrooms: Both are fascinating hobbies, both can prove most addictive, and both for the most part yield tasty results. And yet, for the novice, there exists always the chance of making that one fatal mistake. Ah, but if one lives, one learns!"

"Pigs possess a certain native intelligence and common sense by and large missing from our greater poets. When despair lays its clammy paws across their fevered porcine brows, they do not slump about composing sonnets; they take action."

"Some people just don't stop to think; they're too busy swallowing nightmares whole."

"Here is what I like to do: Pretend I know what grownups are talking about."

"Whoever you are, you’re too weird even for New York, and that’s saying something."

"Talent is no doxy to follow only where gold jingles. Even in the poorest hovels artists can be born as often as cutpurses."

"All acts leave imprints of themselves on the worlds of being, sweet lady. Our loving will leave its little mark, and our quarrel. But nothing leaves so strong a print as evil, and the ghosts of great evils return time after time to reenact their tragedies."

"Time had passed. It will, given half the chance."

"But we had to go believe a prophecy instead of our own eyes, elf! There’s no good ever came of listening to wizards. Half of them are crazy and the other half are so old they sound crazy. And we listened! We’re the craziest of the lot."

"Don’t mistake gratitude for love."

"There is a vast difference between innocence and stupidity."

"Forgive me for a lie, but the dead fight with the weapons they have."

"You may hear the priests claim that revenge belongs to the gods and should never be the property of man. Leave it to the gods to hog the best bits of life for themselves. When you have your enemies skewered, I think it would be wasteful not to stay and watch them writhe. I would even call it impolite. I value courtesy."

"In for a lamb, in for a ram, as the sheep-stealers say just before we hang them."

"The winter of ignorance could come, the cold stoked by a thousand bonfires. There would always be loveless souls ready to kindle such blazes with their neighbors’ books, or dreams, or children."

"That didn’t really fit the facts or make very much sense, but as a theory it had a certain perverse appeal."

"“The trouble with having royal advisors,” the king muttered half to himself, “is that they’re always trying to give a man advice!”"

"Raleel let his head tilt back as he filled his nostrils with the satisfying reek of small hearts and mouldering souls. Selfish greed for their own salvation pulsed from those fifteen in waves he could almost touch, and damnation take anyone who dared to stand between them and the Heaven for which only they were good enough."

"“You don’t have to go by anyone’s rules but your own. Everything about you is special. The only trouble is, no one but you ever seems to see it that way.” “I don’t think I like your attitude.” “I don’t think I care.”"

"Have lunch. It wasn’t anywhere near noon, but for food like this, they weren’t about to quibble. Suddenly the idea of going forth and smiting the heathen didn’t seem that attractive. Life is too short and sweet to waste it bludgeoning your brother into accepting your way of seeing Heaven."

"A high-handed air of command was one of the first symptoms of increasing power-hunger."

"“We are all doomed, condemned to have the flesh seared from our bones, our blood gouting from our headless necks as the dragon rends limb from limb!” “Wait a minute,” the first guard said. “How can the dragon rend us limb from limb, blood gouting and all, if it’s already seared the flesh from our bones?” Another Gorgorian guard gave him a smart thwack in the head and said, “It’s a holy vision, you clod. Things don’t need to make sense when they’re holy visions.”"

"“This—this guy is dead now, right?” Marguerite shrugged. “Death is such a fragile thing. Who knows? I’ve heard rumors, but you can’t depend on anything these days. The greatest wizards of antiquity turn up with less warning than Hamptons houseguests.”"

"“I’m not a Freudian.” Dr. Fitzgerald pronounced the word as if it were axe-murderer."

"Adulthood is not just gauged by years survived. An adult is able to act independently, to resist manipulation, to make his own decisions. And to take the consequences."

"“What a hero!” “What an idiot!” “What’s the difference?”"

"Listen, Noel, I don’t believe in the occult—not the dime store demonism all the right people are barking about. They see devils everywhere but in the mirror, and they raise such a hunting howl about it that they distract attention from the real evils. What I do believe is that there are great powers walking this world—forces for true good, forces for evil we can’t begin to imagine. Too many of the small-souled can only feel good by proving how bad everyone else is. They find it easier to turn a searchlight on some imaginary wickedness outside than to strike a single inner spark that might show them their own hearts."

"Yesterday’s sin is today’s trendy must-do."

"He did not know the proper name by which to call preshrunk designer jeans, yet if left to his own lexical devices, he would name them Paradise. Like many another man of faith, he yearned for entry thereto."

"Growing up’s not something that just happens south of your belt buckle. It’s opening your eyes and taking on the nightmares yourself, without calling for Mommy or Daddy or even God. It’s facing down evil, even when you know it might be the last thing you ever do."

"Few hearts are brave enough to stand between old newspapermen and their liquor. Fewer still would defy the thirsty hordes of the electronic media."

"Hell is full of incompetent rebels."

"The wind had blown since before time had a name and it would blow until time lost all meaning. It blew the dwindling sands of the desert across the encroaching greenness of the fields and forests, past the teeming cities with their needle spires, silver in the glaring sun. It sang a dirge for all the waste that once stretched past the edge of imagination, and it moaned a lament for all who wandered, lost and outcast and alone."

"Amanda gave him the freeze, too. The blue demon hesitated, unsure of whether this snub was a rejection of his leadership or his dubious social standing. There were only a few demons in Debrett’s."

"Faith gagged again, in earnest. Amanda had let her to believe that she was anything but pure, purity no longer being the fashion. Yet here was Geordie, carrying on over her in a style that was popular in the Middle Ages, when you had to adore your lady from afar because if you did it from anear, you’d get her Daddy’s sword in your belly."

"Innocence is only a matter of not being able to believe in a possibility you can’t imagine."

"“Satanism? In Whitman?” “Mmm-hmm.” She threaded her arm through his. “You can find Satanism in everything if you’ve got the right sort of mind and you look hard enough.”"