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
There's no way to escape the fact that we've grown up in a violent culture, we just can't get away from it, it's part of our heritage. I think part of it is that we've always felt somewhat helpless in the face of this vast continent. Helplessness is answered in many ways, but one of them is violence.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on how violence is ingrained in our culture and how feelings of helplessness can lead to aggressive behaviors.
Sam Shepard's quote suggests that growing up in a culture steeped in violence is an unavoidable reality, tied to our heritage. He implies that the vastness of the landscape can evoke feelings of helplessness, which can manifest in various forms, including violence. This statement encourages reflection on the origins of our behaviors and the cultural influences that shape our responses to feelings of powerlessness.
Themes
ViolenceCultureHelplessnessHeritageAggressionResponse
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the impacts of upbringing and societal influences on behavior.
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
Similar quotes
Most people catch their presuppositions from their family and surrounding society the way a child catches measles.
Francis SchaefferRead
From an evolutionary standpoint, human consciousness has not been around very long. A little light just went on after four and a half billion years. How often does that happen? Maybe it is quite rare.
Elon MuskRead
Obviously I have a capacity for feeling extreme anxiety, and there are people out there who don't. I'm to some extent rather jealous of them.
Mark HaddonRead
...quality of life lies in knowledge, in culture. Values are what constitute true quality of life, the supreme quality of life, even above food, shelter and clothing.
Fidel CastroRead
Religions have always been clearly on to this psycho-therapeutic score. For hundreds of years in the West, Christian art had a very clear function: it was meant to direct us towards the good and wean us off vice.
Alain De BottonRead
One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.
Bertrand RussellRead