John Patrick Shanley Quotes

• Choose Life over the other stuff. Get out of your head. Live. Dress up. Eat. Touch people. Help out. Give up. Love people. Give your best away. There’s more. What’s the problem? Relax. You’re going to die. Throw a party. Eat off my plate. Sing to me. Meet me in the bedroom. Get a massage. Give one. Let your amazement out into the room. Pry open the box you hide your joy in. Be a poem.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Love, Life, Giving Up

  75 Copy quote

• I am not a courageous person by nature. I have simply discovered that, at certain key moments in this life, you must find courage in yourself, in order to move forward and live. It is like a muscle and it must be exercised, first a little, and then more and more. All the really exciting things possible during the course of a lifetime require a little more courage than we currently have. A deep breath and a leap.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Courage, Moving, Keys

  28 Copy quote

• Theatre is the safe place to do the unsafe things that need to be done.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Theatre, Needs, Done

  John Patrick Shanley (1991). “The Big Funk: A Casual Play”, p.5, Dramatists Play Service Inc

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• Doubt requires more courage than conviction does, and more energy; because conviction is a resting place and doubt is infinite – it is a passionate exercise. You may come out of my play uncertain. You may want to be sure. Look down on that feeling. We’ve got to learn to live with a full measure of uncertainty. There is no last word. That’s the silence under the chatter of our time.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Exercise, Play, Silence

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• Whatever you do in terms of telling a story, the most important thing that you can define is who you are.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Important, Stories, Term

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• Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice - it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and *die*. The storybooks are *bullshit*. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and *get* in my bed!

  John Patrick Shanley

  Love, Inspirational, Stars

  "Moonstruck". www.imdb.com. 1987.

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• Everything is painful, so why not be honest about the pain?

  John Patrick Shanley

  Pain, Why Not, Honest

  John Patrick Shanley (1985). “Welcome to the Moon and Other Plays”, p.23, Dramatists Play Service Inc

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• Where the terror is, you must go.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Terror

  9 Copy quote

• People ask me if I believe in things: in God, in astrology, and I say, absolutely! I believe in everything! And I believe in its opposite. Like the positive and negative volts on a battery, you need both for power.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Believe, Opposites, Astrology

  11 Copy quote

• I think that certainty is a closed door, It's the end of the conversation. Doubt is an open door.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Thinking, Doors, Doubt

  "John Patrick Shanley On Dogma And 'Doubt'". Interview with Steve Inskeep, Renee Montagne, www.npr.org. December 12, 2008.

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• There are people who...tell you that the light in your heart is a weakness. Don't believe it! It's an old tactic of cruel people to kill kindness in the name of virtue.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Kindness, Believe, Heart

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• I'd like to thank everybody who ever punched or kissed me in my life and everybody who I ever punched or kissed.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Oscar Acceptance Speech, aaspeechesdb.oscars.org. April 11, 1988.

  10 Copy quote

• Trying to lead an interesting life, a fruitful life, is a big challenge.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Interesting, Challenges, Trying

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• All plays stem from personal experience. I was reading psychoanalytic lit for a couple of years, obsessively, in depth, and I got involved in analyzing everyone around me. . . . Eventually, all my friends' eyes began to glaze over when I started talking this way, and I got the hint that there might be something comical in it.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Couple, Reading, Eye

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• Monogamy is like a 40-watt bulb. It works, but its not enough.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Enough, Monogamy, Bulbs

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• When I write a screenplay - and I think this is true for a lot of people - you direct the movie. Thats what writing a screenplay is.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Writing, Thinking, People

  Interview with Nathan Rabin, www.avclub.com. January 13, 2009.

  8 Copy quote

• Winning the Pulitzer is a really mellow, fabulous thing. You don't sit and wait for them to open an envelope. You already know you won, and you have a nice lunch. Oscars are more stressful. I had to sit for three hours and wait for my category. I had to fly to Los Angeles. For the Pulitzer I just had to go up to Columbia. But, while the president of Columbia gave me the Pulitzer, Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck gave me the Oscar, so that was better.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Nice, Winning, Lunch

  Source: movieweb.com

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• If you put someone in a room with no script to direct, they're just going to sit there. Writing scripts is the execution for a show. Then the director takes that and hires people. It's like trying to build a house without any bricks.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Writing, People, House

  "Screenwriter John Patrick Shanley on 'Ups and Downs,' Taking Moonstruck to Broadway and the Plays That Inspired Him". Interview with Jon Chattman, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 18, 2010.

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• If I could, Sister James, I would certainly choose to live in innocence. But innocence can only be wisdom in a world without evil. Situations arise and we are confronted with wrongdoing and the need to act.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Evil, Needs, World

  John Patrick Shanley (2008). “Doubt (movie tie-in edition)”, p.30, Theatre Communications Group

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• I have doubts! I have such doubts!

  John Patrick Shanley

  Doubt

  John Patrick Shanley (2008). “Doubt (movie tie-in edition)”, p.61, Theatre Communications Group

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• dear god, whose name i do not know. thank you for my life. i forgot... how BIG... thank you. thank you for my life.

  John Patrick Shanley

  Names, Dear God, Bigs

  John Patrick Shanley (1996). “Moonstruck: Joe Versus the Volcano ; And, Five Corners : Screenplays”, p.199, Grove Press

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