Quotes from Sam Shepard

To me, a strong sense of self isn't believing in a lot.

When I first started, I didn't really know how to structure a play.

It's funny, in a way the actor is a writer. It's not like the two things are so separate as to be like apples and oranges. The writer and the actor are one.

[Rewriting is] a whole other art form; it's about craftsmanship.

The thing about American writers is that, as a group, they get stuck in the same idea: that we're a continent and the world falls away after us. And it's just nonsense.

I keep endlessly busy with all kinds of stuff, mostly horses, cattle, livestock, things like that.

Democracy's a very fragile thing. You have to take care of democracy. As soon as you stop being responsible to it and allow it to turn into scare tactics, it's no longer democracy, is it? It's something else. It may be an inch away from totalitarianism.

When you write a play, you work out like a musician on a piece of music. You find all the rhythms and the melody and the harmonies and take them as they come.

You don't have to do anything in the movies. You just sit there. Well, that's not entirely true. You do less.

I still find it hard to believe that the whole era of jazz is over.

You sometimes use the excuse, 'I'm a writer, dammit, I can do anything I want,' but that doesn't work.

Keep away from fantasy. Shake off the image.