Edward Albee Quotes

It's one of those things a person has to do; sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out of his way to come back a short distance correctly.

I created myself, and I'll attack anybody I feel like.

I swear if you existed I'd divorce you.

"Martha: Fix the kids a drink, George. What would you like to drink, kid– kid.
Nick: Honey? what would you like?
Honey: Ohhhh, I don't know, dear, a little brandy maybe. "Never mix, never worry!"
George: Brandy? Just brandy? Simple, simple…
[George turns to Nick.]
George: What about you, em… em… em…
Nick: Bourbon on the rocks, if you don't mind.
George: Mind? I don't mind. I don't think I mind. Martha? Rubbing alcohol for you?
Martha: Sure! "Never mix, never worry!

What could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it

I am not interested in living in a city where there isn't a production by Samuel Beckett running.

we must have that put in Latin — We do what we can — on

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.I'm really very mistrustful.

I have learned that neither kindness nor cruelty by themselves; independent of each other, creates any effect beyond themselves; and I have learned that the two combined, together, at the same time, are the teaching emotion. And what is gained is loss.

The Theatre of the Absurd, in the sense that it is truly the contemporary theatre, facing as it does man's condition as it is, is the Realistic theatre of our time; and that the supposed Realistic theatre — the term used here to mean most of what is done on Broadway — in the sense that it panders to the public need for self-congratulation and reassurance and presents a false picture of ourselves to ourselves is … really and truly The Theatre of the Absurd.

All of my plays are about people missing the boat, closing down too young, coming to the end of their lives with regret at things not done, as opposed to things done. I find most people spend too much time living as if they’re never going to die.

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.

... 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.

Yes … but was I happy? Did I sit there and did contentment bathe me in its warm light?

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.