A good actor always sets you straight. If you've written a false moment and thought it was probably pretty great, the actor's gonna show you when he gets to that moment. They're the great test of the validity of the material.
Sam ShepardRead
I feel like I'm a natural-born playwright, but the prose thing has always mystified me. How to keep it going? How do people do it, for years and years?
Interpretation
What this quote means
Sam Shepard expresses his natural inclination towards playwriting while feeling perplexed by the continuous effort required in prose writing.
In this quote, Sam Shepard articulates a sense of innate talent in playwriting but simultaneously conveys his bewilderment at the craft of prose writing. He wonders how writers manage to produce sustained narratives over long periods, highlighting the distinct challenges associated with different forms of writing and the dedication involved in maintaining creative output.
Themes
PlaywrightProseWritingCreativityCraft
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, when discussing struggles in maintaining creativity, you might cite this quote to illustrate common challenges.
More from Sam Shepard
All quotes →I stay away from heavy-handed stuff, the good guy and the bad guy. It just doesn't interest me; all it does is create more fences between people, I think.
Sam ShepardRead
I hate endings. Just detest them. Beginnings are definitely the most exciting, middles are perplexing and endings are a disaster. … The temptation towards resolution, towards wrapping up the package, seems to me a terrible trap. Why not be more honest with the moment? The most authentic endings are the ones which are already revolving towards another beginning. That’s genius.
Sam ShepardRead
There are places where writing is acting and acting is writing. I'm not so interested in the divisions. I'm interested in the way things cross over.
Sam ShepardRead
Democracy's a very fragile thing. You have to take care of democracy. As soon as you stop being responsible to it and allow it to turn into scare tactics, it's no longer democracy, is it? It's something else. It may be an inch away from totalitarianism.
Sam ShepardRead
On stage, you're not limited at all because you're free in language: language is the source of the imagination. You can travel farther in language than you can in any film.
Sam ShepardRead
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