Edward Albee

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

“I dance like the wind.”

“You're alive only once, as far as we know, and what could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it?”

“Stevie: (Not listening) That you can do these two things... and not understand how it... SHATTERS THE GLASS!!?? How it cannot be dealt with-how stop and forgiveness have nothing to do with it? and how I am destroyed? How you are? How I cannot admit it though I know it!? How I cannot deny it because I cannot admit it!? Cannot admit it, because it is outside of denying!?”

“Musical beds is the faculty sport around here.”

“I think we should all live on the precipe of life, as fully and as dangerously as possible. Everyone should make the assumption that they're going through life only once. Tomorrow we die. Why not take chances, extend yourself? How awful it is when a person comes to the end of life full of regret.”

“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.”

“Martha: Oh, I like your anger. I think that's what I like about you most. Your anger.”

“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!”

“Martha: Truth or illusion, George; you don't know the difference.George: No, but we must carry on as though we did.Martha: Amen.”

“You want to dance with me, angel tits?”

“If you have no wounds, how can you know if you're alive?”

“Read the great stuff, but read the stuff that isn't so great, too. Great stuff is very discouraging. If you read only Beckett and Chekhov, you'll go away and only deliver telegrams for Western Union.”

“Unless you are terribly, terribly careful, you run the danger-- without even knowing it is happening to you-- of slipping into the fatal error of reflecting the public taste instead of creating it. Your responsibility is to the public consciousness, not to the public view of itself.”

“What I mean by an educated taste is someone who has the same tastes that I have.”

“We proceed in this society of ours on the possibly valid but untrue assumption that the public knows what it wants-- indeed, that it is given sufficient information about what is available to make such a judgment. And then we jump, irresponsibly and absurdly, to the notion that there is a valid relationship between what the public wants and what it should want.”

“And the west, encumbered by crippling alliances, and hardened with a morality too rigid to accommodate itself to the swing of events, must ..... eventually ..... fall.”

“The world is a zoo”

“Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it. A good writer turns fact into truth; a bad writer will, more often than not, accomplish the opposite.”

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

“Dashed hopes and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested.”

“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.”

“You...you've been here quite a long time, haven't you?"What? Oh...yes. Ever since I married What's-her-name. Uh, Martha. Even before that. Forever. Dashed hopes, and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested. How do you like that for a declension, young man?”

“First, I'll kill the dog with kindness, and if that doesn't work, I'll just kill him.”

“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.”

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

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