Quotes from Terrence McNally

Young people have got to start their own theaters, really. All good theater is a kind of mom-and-pop operation. Start your own theater.

Cheating is not the American way. It is small, while we are large. It is cheap, while we are richly endowed. It is destructive, while we are creative. It is doomed to fail, while our gifts and responsibilities call us to achieve. It sabotages trust and weakens the bonds of spirit and humanity, without which we perish.

If you're trying to write something that you don't understand and embrace at the very core of you, it's not going to turn out with quite the authenticity and passion it should have.

I may think I have inalienable rights to be alive and happy but I don't - life is a blessing.

Technology promises to let us do anything from anywhere with anyone. But it also drains us as we try to do everything everywhere. In a surprising twist, relentless connection leads to a new solitude.

I've had wonderful collaborators. They're very different, just as actors are. Working on a show with Nathan Lane is different from working on a show with Chita Rivera. It keeps you on your toes because it's different every time.

'American Playhouse' is very supportive of writers. That's really why writers like to write for 'American Playhouse' for very little money. They care about making your play, your script, not some network production. We're treated like playwrights, not like fodder for some machine.

MARIA. So. How is everyone? Can you hear me? I don't believe in microphones. Singing is first of all about projection. So is speech. People are forgetting how to listen. They want everything blasted at them. Listening takes concentration. If you can't hear me, it's your fault. You're not concentrating.

Mary: What are you teaching Him at that public high school of yours, Mrs. McElroy? Joshua: She's teaching Me that this town is the armpit of Western civilization.

Patricia: What they did was stupid and cruel and why I am going to write the president of the United States telling him that if there is any place in this country where nuclear bomb testing should be allowed, it's Corpus Christi, Texas.

I'm of the school 'Write what you know.' You can educate yourself, but the best writing usually comes from the heart.