Richard Foreman Quotes

• Understand--it ALWAYS makes sense. Sense can't be avoided. If it first seems to be non-sense, wait: roots will reveal themselves.

  Richard Foreman

  Roots, Waiting, Firsts

  10 Copy quote

• I come from a tradition of Western culture, in which the ideal (my ideal) was the complex, dense, and 'cathedral-like' structure of the highly educated and articulate personality--a man or woman who carried inside themselves a personally constructed and unique version of the entire heritage of the West. [But now] I see within us all (myself included) there placement of complex inner density with a new kind of self--evolving under the pressure of information overload and the technology of the 'instantly available.'

  Richard Foreman

  Unique, Technology, Men

  "The Pancake People, Or, 'The Gods Are Pounding My Head'". A Statement, www.edge.org. March 8, 2005.

  10 Copy quote

• There is no work of art that has ever been made that is absolutely truthful about life.

  Richard Foreman

  Art, Truthful, Made

  8 Copy quote

• Which implies that the real issue in art is the audience's response. Now I claim that when I make things, I don't care about the audience's response, I'm making them for myself. But I'm making them for myself as audience, because I want to wake myself up.

  Richard Foreman

  Art, Real, Issues

  8 Copy quote

• I'm there to make a kind of theatrical music that is desperately missing in my life. And if other people don't like it, I'm very unhappy, but I can't do anything about that.

  Richard Foreman

  People, Missing, Unhappy

  16 Copy quote

• I see within us all (myself included) the replacement of complex inner density with a new kind of self—evolving under the pressure of information overload and the technology of the ‘instantly available’.

  Richard Foreman

  Technology, Self, Information

  4 Copy quote

• If I wasn't in the theater, I would be a hermit.

  Richard Foreman

  Would Be, Theater, Hermits

  7 Copy quote

• Everything Brecht wrote—plays, dialogues, and poetry—was his attempt to clarify the inner contradictions not only of the capitalism and fascism of his times, but also of the communism that was always disappointing his deepest hopes. In a book that makes Brecht’s struggle to reveal these hidden contradictions its central theme, Glahn issues, by implication, a call to arms to today’s artists—who are faced with a world that seems to defy attempts to treat the global crisis with an art that is rarely more than notes on ‘local’ angst.

  Richard Foreman

  Art, Struggle, Book

  4 Copy quote

• I realized that I had to be honest about where I was, where I was coming from, and what I was trying to do.

  Richard Foreman

  Trying, Honest, Being Honest

  4 Copy quote

• You know, actually, I went to Yale because I wanted to stay out of the army.

  Richard Foreman

  Army, Yale, Wanted

  4 Copy quote

• It's true, I don't like the real world.

  Richard Foreman

  Real, World, Real World

  6 Copy quote

• As I told you, from the time I was fifteen, I thought the theater was too much involved with actors trying to make the audience love them, being over emotional.

  Richard Foreman

  Emotional, Over You, Trying

  7 Copy quote

• Because even at the age of fifteen, I used to go see all the Broadway shows and feel that they were sentimental, that they were pandering to the audience and trying to manipulate the audience. I had no use for practically any of the shows that were hits.

  Richard Foreman

  Age, Trying, Sentimental

  6 Copy quote

• My play is the ultimate expression of my feeling of the twilight of Western civilization.

  Richard Foreman

  Twilight, Gdp, Expression

  7 Copy quote

• Now, when I started my theater, the modus operandi was having the actors stare right into the audience.

  Richard Foreman

  Ukulele, Actors, Theater

  21 Copy quote

• I've been trying to figure out for at least the last 10 years how to force myself into something more risky.

  Richard Foreman

  Years, Trying, Lasts

  7 Copy quote

• I acted in junior high in the junior high school group, and then when I got into senior high I was, you know, the main actor of the senior high school.

  Richard Foreman

  Senior, School, Aggravation

  16 Copy quote

• I was enchanted by the escape into that meticulous world that seemed real yet not... well, it seemed not real, but very detailed and meticulous, bizarre.

  Richard Foreman

  Real, World, Enchanted

  87 Copy quote

• What really happened was one day I decided to write a new kind of play.

  Richard Foreman

  Writing, Play, New Day

  4 Copy quote

• One does not devote one's life in art to shock an audience.

  Richard Foreman

  Art, Doe, Shock

  4 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Richard Serra

Robert J. Wilson

Terry Southern

Suzan-Lori Parks

Young Jean Lee

George C. Wolfe

Raul Julia

Reza Abdoh