Quotes from Tony Kushner

It's something you learn after your second theme party: It's all been done before.

The white cracker who wrote the National Anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word "free" to a note so high nobody can reach it.

Be splendid tonight, be focused, have fun, make theater: That's our way of repudiating the bullies, the killjoys, the busybodies and blowhards. We know the secret of making art, while they only know the minor secret of making mischief. We proceed from joy; they only have their misery. -fax to Charlotte Rep, March 20, 1996

We know the secret of making art, while they only know hte minor secret of making mischief. We proceed from joy, they only have their misery.

We have reached a veredict, your honor. This man's heart is deficient. He loves, but his love is worth nothing.

ANGEL: I I I I Am the Bird of America, the Bald Eagle, Continental Principality, LUMEN PHOSPHOR FLUOR CANDLE!

JOE: You said my wife. And I want to know, is she— PRIOR: TALK TO HER YOURSELF, BULLWINKLE! WHAT DO I LOOK LIKE A MARRIAGE COUNSELOR?

You have to have hope. It's irresponsible to give false hope, which I think a lot of playwrights are guilty of. But I also think it's irresponsible to simply be a nihilist, which quite a lot of playwrights, especially playwrights younger than me, have become guilty of.

Prior) This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all, and the dead will be commemorated and will struggle on with the living, and we are not going away. We won't die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come. Bye now. You are fabulous creatures, each and every one. And I bless you: More Life. The Great Work Begins...

I think about that story a lot now. People in a boat, waiting, terrified, while implacable, unsmiling men, irresistibly strong, seize …. Maybe the person next to you, maybe you, and with no warning at all, with time only for a quick intake of air you are pitched into freezing, turbulent water and salt and darkness to drown.

There's no discipline or strategy, nothing depersonalized: its mayhem and each side intensely hates the other.

Bilbo takes a mallet to a crab, smashing it!

Mary, radiant, her charm turned to its brightest candle-power, is greeting the Blairs, who are part of a long receiving line.

Lincoln in his element

There's tense applause. Some of the black guests bow; most aren't sure how to respond.

He has grown older, the skin around his eyes is cobwebbed with fine creases, and his hair's thinner, softer, suffused with gray. His brow has grown smoother.

Lee should leave, having just surrendered to Grant inside; but he's immobile. Some of the officers of both sides look at Lee, some can't bear it. Lee tries out various expressions: pride, defiance, blankness.

This is why, Joe, this is why I shouldn't be left alone.

I wish you would stick more closely to your demographic profile. Life is confusing enough already.

In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead.

You have a good heart and you think the good thing is to be guilty and kind but it's not always kind to be gentle and soft, there's a genuine violence softness and kindness visit on people. Sometimes self-interested is the most generous thing you can be.

We won't die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come. Bye now. You are fabulous creatures, each and every one. And I bless you: More Life. The Great Work Begins.

Don't be afraid; people are so afraid; don't be afraid to live in the raw wind, naked, alone...Learn at least this: What you are capable of. Let nothing stand in your way.

Respect the delicate ecology of your delusions.