What is the main problem of the actor? It is to keep the audience awake, and not let them go to sleep, then wake up and go home feeling they've wasted their money.
Laurence OlivierRead
It took me two years to walk around a chair with ease; it took me another two years to learn how to laugh onstage - and I had to learn everything.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Learning and mastery require time, patience, and effort.
This quote by Laurence Olivier highlights the long journey of personal and artistic development. It emphasizes how skills, particularly those related to performance and creativity, do not come easily but require dedicated practice and learning, often over many years.
Themes
LearningMasteryPerformancePatienceArtistic Development
In practice
Example use cases
During a talk on the importance of practice for artists, this quote can illustrate the dedication required in the craft.
More from Laurence Olivier
All quotes →Work is life for me, it is the only point of life - and with it there is almost religious belief that service is everything.
Laurence OlivierRead
I don't know what is better than the work that is given to the actor - to teach the human heart the knowledge of itself.
Laurence OlivierRead
Acting is an everlasting search for truth.
Laurence OlivierRead
I'd like people to remember me for a diligent expert workman. I think a poet is a workman. I think Shakespeare was a workman. And God's a workman. I don't think there's anything better than a workman.
Laurence OlivierRead
Nine books have been written about me, and there's not a word of truth in any of them.
Laurence OlivierRead
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