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Theatre Quotes

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Displaying 221 - 240 of 425
  • " When it's good design, you alone will know. When it's bad design - everyone will tell you!"

    - Unknown


  • " Good actors are good because of the things they can tell us without talking. When they are talking they are the slaves of the dramatist. It is what they can show the audience when they are not talking that reveals the fine actor."

    - Cedric Hardwicke

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips


  • " The most precious things in speech are pauses."

    - Ralph Richardson

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips


  • " Acting is standing up naked and turning around very slowly."

    - Rosalind Russell

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips


  • " Acting is half shame, half glory. Shame at exhibiting yourself, glory when you can forget yourself."

    - John Gielgud

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips


  • " The most important thing you can teach actors is to understand plays."

    - Stella Adler

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips


  • " It is widely acknowledged to be the toughest job to get any two acting teachers to agree about anything."

    - Robert Lewis

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips


  • " The important talent is the talent to develop one's talent."

    - Howard Stein

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips


  • " Bad acting, like bad writing, has a remarkable uniformity, whether seen on the French, German, or English stages; it all seems modeled after two or three types, and those the least like types of good acting. The fault generally lies less in the bad imitation of a good model, than in the successful imitation of a bad model."

    - George Lewes

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips


  • " Imagination! Imagination! I put it first years ago, when I was asked what qualities I thought necessary for success upon the stage. And I am still of the same opinion. Imagination, industry [hard work], and intelligence--the three I's--are all indispensable to the actor, but of these three the greatest is, without any doubt, imagination."

    - Ellen Terry

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips


  • " I learned acting by doing it. And although I had never taken an acting class, it didn't take long to learn how to be on the stage. All you have to do is to be humiliated in front of an audience a few times. If you don't like being humiliated publicly, you learn how to act."

    - Ron Vawter

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips


  • " When actors go onstage, you know immediately if they can do their job. You can be a lawyer or an accountant for years and not find out."

    - Patsy Rodenburg

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips


  • " The main difference between the art of the actor and all other arts is that every other [non-performing] artist may create whenever he is in the mood of inspiration. But the artist of the stage must be the master of his own inspiration, and must know how to call it forth at the hour announced on the posters of the theatre. This is the chief secret of our art."

    - Konstantin Stanislavsky

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips


  • " Like the Bible, Stanislavsky's basic texts on acting can be quoted to any purpose."

    - Lee Strasberg

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips


  • " Playing Shakespeare requires technique. You don't play a Bach toccata by getting in the mood."

    - Kevin Kline

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips


  • " Playing Shakespeare is very tiring. You never get to sit down, unless you're a king."

    - Josephine Hull

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips


  • " Being another character is more interesting than being yourself."

    - John Gielgud

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips


  • " There are no small parts, there are only small actors."

    - Konstantin Stanislavksy

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips


  • " A good actor makes clear the meaning of the words. A better actor gives also the emotion of the part. The best actor adds emotion of which the character is unconscious."

    - Clare Eames

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips


  • " It is the writer's job to make the play interesting. It is the actor's job to make the performance truthful."

    - David Mamet

    Source: The Audience Book of Theatre Quotations, by Louis Phillips