Marsha Norman Quotes

Quotes about:

• Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you.

  Marsha Norman

  Inspirational, Life, Dream

  "Success Comes in Cans: Learning Lessons for Life". Book by Kriss Akabusi and Tricia Hartley, 2006.

  144 Copy quote

• There are things that music can do that language could never do, that painting could never do, or sculpture. Music is capable of going directly to the source of the mystery. It doesn't have to explain it. It can simply celebrate it.

  Marsha Norman

  Sculpture, Painting, Language

  16 Copy quote

• We have to hear the stories of women at all ages of their lives in order to really present a picture of what it felt like to be alive in our time. That's what our job is as writers is to present that and create it. Our job as writers isn't to make as much money as we can. Our job is to create a record of this time. That's why if you leave out women and the stories of women, we failed at our mission. All of us. Men and women.

  Marsha Norman

  Jobs, Men, Order

  13 Copy quote

• Art is how a culture records its life, how it poses questions for the next generation and how it will be remembered.

  Marsha Norman

  Art, Generations, Culture

  4 Copy quote

• Write about the thing that frightens you most.

  Marsha Norman

  Writing

  8 Copy quote

• We are not afraid to look under the bed, or to wash the sheets; we know that life is messy. We know that somebody has to clean it up, and that only if it is cleaned up can we hope to start over, and get better.

  Marsha Norman

  Starting Over, Get Better, Bed

  15 Copy quote

• on the whole the American theater, dominated by men, does not perceive women fighting for their lives as a central issue.

  Marsha Norman

  Fighting, Men, Issues

  11 Copy quote

• Knowing is the most profound kind of love, giving someone the gift of knowledge about yourself.

  Marsha Norman

  Love You, Knowing, Giving

  7 Copy quote

• There is no point in trying to remember your dreams ... There is only the unspeakable joy of eavesdropping on your spirit, catching tiny glimpses of its independent life, resting for a moment in its wisdom, puzzling, laughing sometimes, over what it's up to, what it makes of you.

  Marsha Norman

  Dream, Independent, Laughing

  10 Copy quote

• During the day, our souls gather their ... impressions of us, how our lives feel. ... Our spirits collect these impressions, keep them together, like wisps of smoke in a bag. Then, when we're asleep, our brains open up these bags of smoke ... and take a look.

  Marsha Norman

  Soul, Brain, Together

  7 Copy quote

• Music expresses longing and love and joy better than any piece of dialogue you can ever write.

  Marsha Norman

  Writing, Joy, And Love

  7 Copy quote

• The theater is a communal event, like church. The playwright constructs a mass to be performed for a lot of people. She writes a prayer, which is really just the longings of one heart.

  Marsha Norman

  Prayer, Writing, Heart

  6 Copy quote

• People do think that if they avoid the truth, it might change to something better before they have to hear it.

  Marsha Norman

  Thinking, People, Might

  4 Copy quote

• Family is just accident.... They don't mean to get on your nerves. They don't even mean to be your family, they just are.

  Marsha Norman

  Family, Mean, Being Thankful

  Marsha Norman (1983). “'Night, Mother”, p.19, Dramatists Play Service Inc

  11 Copy quote

• No. You can't. And I can't do anything either, about my life, to change it, make it better, make me feel better about it. Like it better, make it work. But I can stop it. Shut it down, turn it off like the radio when there's nothing on I want to listen to. It's all I really have that belongs to me and I'm going to say what happens to it. And it's going to stop. And I'm going to stop it. So. Let's just have a good time.

  Marsha Norman

  Feel Better, Bored, Want

  8 Copy quote

• I'm who I was waiting for. I didn't make it.

  Marsha Norman

  Waiting

  "Fictional character: Jessie Cates". "'night, Mother", www.imdb.com. 1986.

  6 Copy quote

• Success is always something that you have to recover from.

  Marsha Norman

  7 Copy quote

• I have had an inordinate and painful concern for the audience in my writing career.

  Marsha Norman

  Writing, Careers, Painful

  7 Copy quote

• There are days when I think the National Endowment for the Arts should issue a quota system for the production of plays by women - especially when you realize women buy 70 percent of all theater tickets.

  Marsha Norman

  Art, Thinking, Play

  7 Copy quote

• Mama, I know you used to ride the bus. Riding the bus, and it’s hot and bumpy and crowded and too noisy, and more than anything else in the world, you wanna get off. And the only reason in the world you don’t get off is it’s still fifty blocks from where you’re going. Well, I can get off right now if I want to. Because even if I ride fifty more years and get off then, it’s still the same place when I step down to it. Whenever I feel like it, I can get off. Whenever I’ve had enough, it’s my stop. I’ve had enough.

  Marsha Norman

  Block, Years, Bored

  "'night, Mother". www.imdb.com. September 5, 1986.

  4 Copy quote

• I feel that I speak the musical language.

  Marsha Norman

  Musical, Language, Speak

  4 Copy quote

• After I won the Pulitzer, there was this sense of, 'OK, that's enough for you. Now go away.' What I wanted was to keep writing, keep working. But no one would produce anything of mine they didn't think would be as big as ''night, Mother.'

  Marsha Norman

  Mother, Writing, Night

  4 Copy quote

• If I had not had music in my life, I would be the neurasthenic vision of the playwright.

  Marsha Norman

  Vision, Would Be, Playwright

  4 Copy quote

• My view is that musicals are love stories with great final scenes. It's just that simple. Musicals are also conflicts between two worlds. And by those criteria, 'The Color Purple' is actually exactly the kind of story that makes for a great musical. Yes, it's got hard stuff in it, but so does 'Les Miserables' and 'Phantom of the Opera.'

  Marsha Norman

  Simple, Views, Color

  4 Copy quote

• In the theater, when people hear that you're writing a play, they want to know what it's all about, whether there's a role for them. You write it fairly quickly, and it becomes a group activity before you're really ready to have company.

  Marsha Norman

  Writing, Play, People

  4 Copy quote

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