Was it always my nature to take a bad time and block out the good times, until any success became an accident and failure seemed the only truth?
Lillian HellmanRead
I've always had great satisfaction out of writing the plays. I've not always had great satisfaction out of seeing them produced-although often I've had satisfaction there. When things go well in production, on opening there's no nicer feeling in the world-what could be nicer than watching an audience respond? You can't that from a book. It's a fine feeling to walk into the theater and see living people respond to something you've done.
Interpretation
The joy of writing plays surpasses the satisfaction of watching them performed, though the audience's response is incredibly rewarding.
Lillian Hellman's quote captures the dual nature of a playwright's experience. Creating plays brings a profound sense of fulfillment, yet the real joy often blooms when witnessing an audience engage with the work live. It emphasizes the unique connection and emotional reward that comes from seeing one's creations come to life, and how that response is irreplaceable compared to reading from a script.
In practice
A playwright may use this quote during a talk at a theater festival to emphasize the connection between artist and audience.
Was it always my nature to take a bad time and block out the good times, until any success became an accident and failure seemed the only truth?
If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.
It is best to act with confidence, no matter how little right you have to it.
If you believe, as the Greeks did, that man is at the mercy of the gods, then you write tragedy. The end is inevitable from the beginning. But if you believe that man can solve his own problems and is at nobody's mercy, then you will probably write melodrama.
Nobody knows what you want except you. And nobody will be as sorry as you if you don't get it. Wanting some other way to live is proof enough of deserving it. Having it is hard work, but not having it is sheer hell.
Failure in the theater is more dramatic and uglier than any other form of writing. It costs so much, you feel so guilty.
The passion for art is, as for believers, very religious. It unites people, its message is of common humanity. Art has become my religion - others pray in church. It's a banality, but you don't possess art, it possesses you. It's like falling in love.
The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.
The sound of colors is so definite that it would be hard to find anyone who would express bright yellow with bass notes or dark lake with treble.
I want my stories to move people ... to feel some kind of reward from the writing.
The condition every art requires is, not so much freedom from restriction, as freedom from adulteration and from the intrusion of foreign matter.
The more one studies the harmony of music, and then studies human nature, how people agree and how they disagree, how there is attraction and repulsion, the more one will see that it is all music.
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