Famous quotes by Playwrights

Playwrights

Explore reflections from playwrights whose words illuminate the stage and the world beyond. Their observations on craft, character, and community reveal how drama distills the complexity of everyday life into moments of clarity and wonder. Whether you are a theater lover, student, or simply curious about storytelling, these voices offer perspective on creativity, collaboration, and the courage it takes to put dialogue in motion. Let their lines spark thought, invite empathy, and celebrate the enduring power of live narrative.

"Weak minds sink under prosperity as well as adversity; but strong and deep ones have two high tides"

David Hare, Playwright

David Hare

"That's how it is on this bitch of an earth"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

Samuel Beckett

"I can't go on. I'll go on"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

Samuel Beckett

"A neurotic is a man who builds a castle in the air. A psychotic is the man who lives in it. A psychiatrist is the man who collects the rent"

Jerome Lawrence, Playwright

Jerome Lawrence

"Dublin University contains the cream of Ireland: rich and thick"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

Samuel Beckett

"Where there's tea there's hope"

Arthur W. Pinero, Playwright

Arthur W. Pinero

"Won't you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you"

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Playwright

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

"All the world's a stage, and most of us are desperately unrehearsed"

Sean O'Casey, Playwright

Sean O'Casey

"If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

W. Somerset Maugham

"Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

Samuel Beckett

"A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself"

Arthur Miller, Playwright

Arthur Miller

"The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

W. Somerset Maugham

"I have learned to hate all traitors, and there is no disease that I spit on more than treachery"

Aeschylus, Playwright

Aeschylus

"People are wrong when they say opera is not what it used to be. It is what it used to be. That is what's wrong with it"

Noel Coward, Playwright

Noel Coward

"Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole"

Derek Walcott, Playwright

Derek Walcott

"Where there's life, there's hope"

Terence, Playwright

Terence

"Death comes for us all. Even for kings, he comes"

Robert Bolt, Playwright

"They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

Samuel Beckett

"Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words"

Plautus, Playwright

Plautus

"You know it is not my interest to pay the principal, or my principal to pay the interest"

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Playwright

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

"I hold this as a rule of life: too much of anything is bad"

Terence, Playwright

Terence

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

Samuel Beckett

"We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed, after a certain interval, by a baby"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

W. Somerset Maugham

"Bronze in the mirror of the form, wine of the mind"

Aeschylus, Playwright

Aeschylus

"Nothing is said that has not been said before"

Terence, Playwright

Terence

"Man must shape his tools lest they shape him"

Arthur Miller, Playwright

Arthur Miller

"A suicide kills two people, Maggie, that's what it's for!"

Arthur Miller, Playwright

Arthur Miller

"All the ills of mankind, all the tragic misfortunes that fill the history books, all the political blunders, all the failures of the great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill at dancing"

Moliere, Playwright

Moliere

"God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December"

James M. Barrie, Playwright

James M. Barrie

"But we are not in the world to be good, but to change it"

Edward Bond, Playwright

Edward Bond

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