Edward Albee Quotes

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.

Knowing it — knowing it's true is one thing, but believing what you know... well, there's the tough part.

MARTIN (Serious) Am I too young for Alzheimer’s? STEVIE Probably. Isn’t it nice to be too young for something?

I've noticed that there is not necessarily a great relationship between what the majority of critics have to say and what is actually true. Some of them are so busy trying to mold the public taste according to the limits of their perceptions, and others are so busy reflecting what they consider to be the public taste — that view limited again by their perception. 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.

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.

I write to find out what I'm talking about.

You want to dance with me, angel tits?

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.

"That's what happens in plays, yes? The shit hits the fan." — Edward Albee

A play is fiction — and fiction is fact distilled into truth.

Musical beds is the faculty sport around here.

I said I was impressed, Martha. I'm beside myself with jealousy. What do you want me to do, throw up?

Sometimes it’s necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.

You're in a straight line, buddy-boy, and it doesn't lead anywhere.....except maybe the grave.

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... You can't involve yourself with the vicissitudes of fashion or critical response. I'm fairly confident that my work is going to be around for a while. 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.