Quotes from Edward Albee

If you spend a hundred bucks, or more, to go to the theatre, something should happen to you. Maybe somebody should be asking you some questions about your values, or about the way you think about things. Maybe you should come out of the theatre, something having happened to you. Maybe you should be changing, or thinking about changing. But if you just go there, and the only thing you worry about is where you left the damn car, then you wasted a hundred bucks.

In my mind, Martha, you are buried in cement right up to your neck. No… right up to your nose… that's much quieter.

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.

Good writers define reality Bad ones merely restate it.

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!

That's the happiest moment. When it's all done. When we stop. When we can stop.

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.

Addiction is a repeated temporary...stilling. I am concerned with peace...not mere relief.

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

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!?

People can't have everything they want. You should know that; it's a rule; people can have some of the things they want, but they can't have everything.

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

what I wanted to get at is the value difference between pornographic playing cards when you're a kid, and pornographic playing cards when you're older. It's that when you're a kid you use the cards as a substitute for a real experience, and when you're older you use real experience as a substitute for the fantasy.

All of my plays are about people missing the boat, closing down too young, coming to the end of their lives with regret at things not done, as opposed to things done. I find most people spend too much time living as if they're never going to die.

The most profound indication of social malignancy ... no sense of humor. None of the monoliths could take a joke.

If you spend a hundred bucks, or more, to go to the theatre, something should happen to you. Maybe somebody should be asking you some questions about your values, or about the way you think about things. Maybe you should come out of the theatre, something haven happened to you. Maybe you should be changing, or thinking about changing. But if you just go there, and the only thing you worry about is where you left the damn car, then you wasted a hundred bucks.

But the landlady is a fat, ugly, mean, stupid, unwashed, misanthropic, cheap, drunken bag of garbage. And you may have noticed that I very seldom use profanity, so I can't describe her as well as I might.

Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf mean who's afraid of the big bad wolf…who's afraid of living without false illusions

Honey: I know these people ...

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

Careers are funny things. They begin mysteriously and, just as mysteriously, they can end.

People like theater that is safe, generally speaking — things that are easy, that are not too deeply troubling. In other words, people want to go to the theater and waste their time.

Violence! Violence!

Yes … but was I happy? Did I sit there and did contentment bathe me in its warm light?