Minnie Maddern Fiske Quotes

• It is in the irony of things that the theatre should be the most dangerous place for the actor. But, then, after all, the world is the worst possible place, the most corrupting place, for the human soul. And just as there is no escape from the world, which follows us into the very heart of the desert, so the actor cannot escape the theatre. And the actor who is a dreamer need not. All of us can only strive to remain uncontaminated. In the world we must be unworldly, in the theatre the actor must be untheatrical.

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Heart, Soul, Dreamer

  45 Copy quote

• Among the most disheartening and dangerous of . . . advisors, you will often find those closest to you, your dearest friends, members of your own family, perhaps, loving, anxious, and knowing nothing whatever . . .

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Friendship, Knowing Nothing, Anxiety

  Minnie Maddern Fiske, Alexander Woollcott (1917). “Mrs. Fiske: Her Views on Actors, Acting, and the Problems of Production”

  17 Copy quote

• Go into the streets, into the slums, into the fashionable quarters. Go into the day courts and the night courts. Become acquainted with sorrow, with many kinds of sorrow. Learn of the wonderful heroism of the poor, of the incredible generosity of the very poor

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Night, Generosity, Sorrow

  Minnie Maddern Fiske, Alexander Woollcott (1917). “Mrs. Fiske: Her Views on Actors, Acting, and the Problems of Production”

  4 Copy quote

• The actor who lets the dust accumulate on his Ibsen, his Shakspere [sic], and his Bible, but pores greedily over every little column of theatrical news, is a lost soul.

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Reading, Dust, Soul

  4 Copy quote

• You must make your own blunders, must cheerfully accept your own mistakes as part of the scheme of things.

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Mistake, Accepting, Schemes

  Minnie Maddern Fiske, Alexander Woollcott (1917). “Mrs. Fiske: Her Views on Actors, Acting, and the Problems of Production”

  4 Copy quote

• ...an actor is exactly as big as his imagination.

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Imagination, Actors, Bigs

  Minnie Maddern Fiske, Alexander Woollcott (1917). “Mrs. Fiske: Her Views on Actors, Acting, and the Problems of Production”

  4 Copy quote

• People whose understanding and taste in literature, painting, and music are beyond question are, for the most part, ignorant of what is good or bad art in the theater.

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Art, People, Understanding

  Minnie Maddern Fiske, Alexander Woollcott (1917). “Mrs. Fiske: Her Views on Actors, Acting, and the Problems of Production”

  4 Copy quote

• Many a play is like a painted backdrop, something to be looked at from the front. An Ibsen play is like a black forest, somethingyou can enter, something you can walk about in. There you can lose yourself: you can lose yourself. And once inside, you find such wonderful glades, such beautiful, sunlit places.

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Beautiful, Play, Black

  4 Copy quote

• I suppose that Paderewski can play superbly, if not quite at his best, while his thoughts wander to the other end of the world, orpossibly busy themselves with a computation of the receipts as he gazes out across the auditorium. I know a great actor, a master technician, can let his thoughts play truant from the scene.

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Art, Play, World

  6 Copy quote

• The essence of acting is the conveyance of truth through the medium of the actor's mind and person. The science of acting deals with the perfecting of that medium.

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Essence, Mind, Acting

  Minnie Maddern Fiske, Alexander Woollcott (1917). “Mrs. Fiske: Her Views on Actors, Acting, and the Problems of Production”

  4 Copy quote

• You must not allow yourself to be advised, cautioned, influenced, persuaded

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Minnie Maddern Fiske, Alexander Woollcott (1917). “Mrs. Fiske: Her Views on Actors, Acting, and the Problems of Production”

  4 Copy quote

• Be reflective...and stay away from the theater as much as you can. Stay out of the theatrical world, out of its petty interests, its inbreeding tendencies, its stifling atmosphere, its corroding influence. Once become

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Atmosphere, World, Inbreeding

  52 Copy quote

• As soon as I suspect a fine effect is being achieved by accident I lose interest. I am not interested...in unskilled labor. ...The scientific actor is an even worker. Any one may achieve on some rare occasion an outburst of genuine feeling, a gesture of imperishable beauty, a ringing accent of truth; but your scientific actor knows how he did it. He can repeat it again and again and again. He can be depended on.

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Feelings, Rare Occasion, May

  4 Copy quote

• Idealistic producing is safe. Sensibly projected in the theater, the fine thing always does pay and always will.

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Doe, Safe, Pay

  Minnie Maddern Fiske, Alexander Woollcott (1917). “Mrs. Fiske: Her Views on Actors, Acting, and the Problems of Production”

  7 Copy quote

• ... most of all the actor will love the boys and girls, the men and women, who sit in the cheapest seats, in the very last row of the top gallery. They have given more than they can afford to come. In the most self-effacing spirit of fellowship they are listening to catch every word, watching to miss no slightest gesture or expression. To save his life the actor cannot help feeling these nearest and dearest. He cannot help wishing to do his best for them. He cannot help loving them best of all.

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Girl, Men, Boys

  4 Copy quote

• This...is an age of specialization, and in such an age the repertory theater is an anachronism, a ludicrous anachronism.

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Age, Theater, Anachronism

  87 Copy quote

• ...I have never known a movement in the theater that did not work direct and serious harm. Indeed, I have sometimes felt that the very people associated with various uplifting activities in the theater are people who are astoundingly lacking in idealism.

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Uplifting, People, Serious

  Minnie Maddern Fiske, Alexander Woollcott (1917). “Mrs. Fiske: Her Views on Actors, Acting, and the Problems of Production”

  7 Copy quote

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