Sam Shepard Quotes

Quotes about:

• I hate endings. Just detest them. Beginnings are definitely the most exciting, middles are perplexing and endings are a disaster. … The temptation towards resolution, towards wrapping up the package, seems to me a terrible trap. Why not be more honest with the moment? The most authentic endings are the ones which are already revolving towards another beginning. That’s genius.

  Sam Shepard

  Hate, Temptation, Why Not

  162 Copy quote

• When you hit a wall – of your own imagined limitations – just kick it in.

  Sam Shepard

  Motivational, Moving On, Success

  "Remembering Sam Shepard: The Pulitzer-Winning Playwright and Author's 10 Best Quotes on Writing, Love and Life" by Olivia Ladd, parade.com. July 31, 2017.

  118 Copy quote

• Love is the only disease that makes you feel better.

  Sam Shepard

  Feel Better, Love Is, Disease

  62 Copy quote

• The fantastic thing about the theatre is that it can make something be seen that's invisible, and that's where my interest in theatre is- that you can be watching this thing happening with actors and costumes and light and set and language, and even plot, and something emerges from beyond that, and that's the image part that I'm looking for, that sort of added dimension.

  Sam Shepard

  Light, Theatre, Plot

  Sam Shepard (1984). “Fool for Love and Other Plays”, Bantam Books

  54 Copy quote

• When you're looking for someone, you're looking for some aspect of yourself, even if you don't know it ... What we're searching for is what we lack.

  Sam Shepard

  Inspirational, Motivational, Dating

  "Sam Shepard opens up". Interview with Carole Cadwalladr, www.theguardian.com. March 20, 2010.

  33 Copy quote

• Character is an essential tendency. It can be covered up, it can be messed with, it can be screwed around with, but it can't be ultimately changed. It's the structure of our bones, the blood that runs through our veins.

  Sam Shepard

  Running, Character, Blood

  29 Copy quote

• Ideas emerge from plays, not the other way around.

  Sam Shepard

  Play, Ideas, Way

  Sam Shepard (1984). “Fool for Love and Other Plays”, Dial Press

  43 Copy quote

• There are places where writing is acting and acting is writing. I'm not so interested in the divisions. I'm interested in the way things cross over.

  Sam Shepard

  Writing, Acting, Division

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  46 Copy quote

• I feel like I've never had a home, you know? I feel related to the country, to this country, and yet I don't know exactly where I fit in... There's always this kind of nostalgia for a place, a place where you can reckon with yourself.

  Sam Shepard

  Country, Home, Nostalgia

  43 Copy quote

• I believe in my mask-- The man I made up is me I believe in my dance-- And my destiny

  Sam Shepard

  Believe, Destiny, Men

  Sam Shepard, Joseph Chaikin (1981). “Seven Plays”

  43 Copy quote

• Words are tools of imagery in motion.

  Sam Shepard

  Tools, Imagery

  "Peter Dinklage’s Yearbook Photo Is A Be-Mulleted Masterpiece" by Caleb Reading, uproxx.com. June 4, 2014.

  37 Copy quote

• Beginnings are definitely the most exciting, middles are perplexing and endings are a disaster.

  Sam Shepard

  Disaster, Exciting

  "Pulitzer Winner and ALS Patient Sam Shepard Dies at 73" by Mathew Shanley, www.raredr.com. July 31, 2017.

  23 Copy quote

• For me, playwriting is and has always been like making a chair. Your concerns are balance, form, timing, lights, space, music. If you don't have these essentials, you might as well be writing a theoretical essay, not a play.

  Sam Shepard

  Writing, Light, Play

  35 Copy quote

• This isn't champagne anymore. We went through the champagne a long time ago. This is serious stuff. The days of champagne are long gone.

  Sam Shepard

  Long, Alcohol, Gone

  Sam Shepard (1984). “Sam Shepard Seven Plays”

  31 Copy quote

• In real life we don't know what's going to happen next. So how can you be that way on a stage? Being alive to the possibility of not knowing exactly how everything is going to happen next - if you can find places to have that happen onstage, it can resonate with an experience of living.

  Sam Shepard

  Real, Knowing, Alive

  33 Copy quote

• I had a definite sense of somehow being a passenger in an evil vehicle crusing through Paradise.

  Sam Shepard

  Evil, Paradise, Vehicle

  17 Copy quote

• There's no way to escape the fact that we've grown up in a violent culture, we just can't get away from it, it's part of our heritage. I think part of it is that we've always felt somewhat helpless in the face of this vast continent. Helplessness is answered in many ways, but one of them is violence.

  Sam Shepard

  Thinking, Culture, Heritage

  "Getting Faster With Age: Sam Shepard’s New Velocity". Interview with Patrick Healy, www.nytimes.com. February 12, 2010.

  20 Copy quote

• I wanted to write a play about double nature ... one that wouldn't be symbolic or metaphorical or any of that stuff. I just wanted to give a taste of what it feels like to be two-sided. It's a real thing, double nature. I think we're split in a much more devastating way than psychology can ever reveal. It's not so cute. Not some little thing we can get over. It's something we've got to live with

  Sam Shepard

  Cute, Real, Writing

  34 Copy quote

• It's one of the great tragedies of our contemporary life in America, that families fall apart. Almost everybody has that in common.

  Sam Shepard

  Fall, America, Tragedy

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  29 Copy quote

• The words I overuse are all adverbs.

  Sam Shepard

  Adverbs

  Interview with Rosanna Greenstreet, www.theguardian.com. June 21, 2014.

  9 Copy quote

• Being a writer is so great because you're literally not dependent on anybody. Whereas, as an actor, you have to audition or wait for somebody else to make a decision about how to use you, with writing, you can do it anywhere, anytime you want. You don't have to ask permission.

  Sam Shepard

  Writing, Decision, Waiting

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  17 Copy quote

• I like cars. I like travel. I like the idea of people breaking down and I'm the only one who can help them get on the road again. It would be like being a magician. Just open up the hood and cast your magic spell.

  Sam Shepard

  Ideas, People, Car

  Sam Shepard (1976). “Curse of the Starving Class: A Play in Three Acts”, p.19, Dramatists Play Service Inc

  25 Copy quote

• The great thing for me, now, is that writing has become more and more interesting. Not just as a craft but as a way into things that are not described. It's a thing of discovering. That's when writing is really working. You're on the trail of something and you don't quite know what it is.

  Sam Shepard

  Writing, Interesting, Crafts

  "Sam Shepard opens up". Interview with Carole Cadwalladr, www.theguardian.com. March 20, 2010.

  19 Copy quote

• Keep away from fantasy. Shake off the image.

  Sam Shepard

  Fantasy, Shakes

  Sam Shepard (1997). “Plays”

  14 Copy quote

• Everyone wants a piece of land. It's the only sure investment. It can never depreciate like a car or a washing machine. Land will double its value in ten years. In less than that. Land is going up every day.

  Sam Shepard

  Years, Land, Car

  Sam Shepard (1976). “Curse of the Starving Class: A Play in Three Acts”, p.16, Dramatists Play Service Inc

  25 Copy quote

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