Quotes from Eric Bogosian

Well, the real Eric Bogosian is pretty self-conscious of himself.

Ensemble is hard to do. It's like 3-D chess.

I write my plays to create an excuse for full-tilt acting and performing.

I was definitely surprised when Talk Radio took off as a play. As a film it has become somewhere between a popular thing and a cult thing.

Genocide is a word. Like the words "love" or "God," it seems to be comprehensible. But in fact it cannot be grasped, it cannot be taken in. It is the unspeakable made verbal.

Like many Young Turk leaders, Talat was not ethnically Turkish; rather he was of Pomak descent, that is, native Bulgarian Muslim.

the Young Turks with a complex nationalist ideology replete with ideas such as "in reality there cannot be a common home and fatherland for different peoples.… The new civilization will be created by the Turkish race."27

Genocide, after all, is an exercise in community-building. —Philip Gourevitch

Idealism is guilty middle-class bullshit.

Jeff: I don't need a limousine to know who I am. At least I know I don't know.

Buff: Hey, I've been making these tapes, you know, video tapes. I ripped off a camcorder up at the mall and I thought, you know, it could be something that I do, be a video artist, you know. Tim: Ladies and gentlemen, Buff, the postmodern idiot savant. He will outdo us all.

Jeff: I could go to New York if I wanted to, but what's the point? So I can learn how to order a capuccino? So I can get mugged by some crackhead? So I can see homeless people up close and personal? Sooze: So what do you want to do? Jeff: Nothing. Sooze: No one does nothing, Jeff! Jeff: Okay, well, then I'm going to break new ground. Sooze: New ground?! Jeff: Mm-hmm. Sooze: Taking one community college course on the history of Nicaragua while barely holding a job packing boxes?

Buff: What are you doing now? Bee-Bee: I don't know. You mean like now? Like right now? Waiting.

Jeff: At least I admit that I don't know. I know that things are fucked up, beyond belief, and I have nothing original to say about it...

And then I'm gonna step right into the wilderness. Just live on berries and shit. Not bother anybody. Not hurt anything. Something I have to do, man.

Tim: I shot my TV.

Jeff: Idealism is guilty middle-class bullshit.

And I thought, That pretty much sums it up. Meatballs, man. Like what's the karma in a meatball? Only humans make balls out of other animals. Like when you're in kindergarten and you're coloring in your coloring book: What does the doggy say? "Bowwow!" What does the kitty say? "Meeoww!" What does the moocow say? "AARRGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!

I write for an audience that likes what I like, reads what I read, thinks about the things I think about. In many ways, this puts me in opposition to the people who go to the theater generally.

For a long time, my shows were about people walking out or about getting my gigs canceled or having the presenter not wanting to pay me.

I'm not hip, I'm not cool, I'm not glib.

It's my duty as a human being to be pissed off

At least I admit that I don't know. I know that things are fucked up, beyond belief, and I have nothing original to say about it.

I'm a first class passenger on the Spaceship Earth, and I got one ticket. And I gotta make the ride count, you know? And, as far as I figure, you can either take the service road or the scenic route. And, man, if I only have one ride, I want it to be beautiful. 84. Highway.