Edward Albee Quotes

I feel like movies should stick to a genre and give the audience what they want, and then surprise them with the unexpected, and not just do the same thing you've always seen.

I'd like to give the audience what they've always wanted to see and also I want to give the audience what they've never seen. It's these two things I'm striving for.

What I enjoy about my work is that it's all things that I wanted to see as an audience member so there's part of me that understands what an audience wants to see in that respect.

You have to shelve a lot of your inspiration. There's only so much you can do with one record.

We don't make movies for critics. I've done four movies; there's millions upon millions upon millions of people who've paid to see them. Somebody likes them. My greatest joy is to sit anonymously in a dark theater and watch it with an audience, a paying audience.

You can't be trying to make a film that pleases all people, you know, so it's not a concern of mine.

When looking at any significant work of art, remember that a more significant one probably has had to be sacrificed.

I don't know what an audience wants to see but I know what I like to see.

Film making is an expensive, as well as a serious business. We should be able to entertain our audiences, who are fully aware of what they want. Every filmmaker has a different point of view and presents facets of society.

You can only make the best thing you can make, and if it offends purists, or angers certain critics, you can only have done your best.

When I am filming dramas, I lean towards doing what the public wants to see from me.

Commercial theater, in its agenda to appeal to everybody, is often at the expense of the unique vision of the artist.

I forget who said it, but there's that saying: 'Films are never finished, they're abandoned.' There's always something you think you can improve on, but I don't think you should try. George Lucas started doing it, and didn't stop. You can tinker indefinitely, and it doesn't necessarily make it better.

I don't want to do something that is so inside that only die-hard fans will appreciate.

Once I reached my 40s, I thought to myself that if I'm going to play live now, I need to really mean this. I can't go out and be a little bit, for one moment slovenly in my choices as a performer. I mean, these people have paid a lot of money to be here, they've been through the nightmare of getting here, starving themselves waiting for us to get on stage, so I'm going to give them what they came here for.

Imagination without skill gives us contemporary art.

Whenever you take over something that is popular and has a fanatical following that loves it, you're never going to please everyone. The trick is to have enough wherewithal to follow through with what you want to do with it and give it time to evolve.

And Paul Moravec, not being a theater person, would always trust me when I said things that I am like, "you're going to need another 10 seconds of music year to get them across the stage." But I always knew that the people were going to be coming to hear his music of which my words are going to be a part. It was clear that he wanted to go and direction A., and I wanted to go and direction B. We would've gone and direction A. That's the most important piece of advice I can give to anybody who finds themselves in an opera, or musical comedy situation like that.

Giving it to the audience is probably the easiest thing. Finding out what they truly want is probably the most difficult.

How to please the public - that's the test, But nowadays I find I'm in a fix; I know they're not accustomed to the best, But they've all read so much they know the tricks. How can we give then something fresh and new That's serious, but entertaining too?

I mean I have had a very combative relationship with critics because I'm very impatient with people that don't give my work the respect I feel it deserves.

Don't make a film if it can't be the film you want to make. It's a joke, and a sick joke, and it'll kill you.

Movies aren't finished, they're abandoned. And you have to make your peace with that.

I like it when people come to see me again, but you end up playing to that person only. You know there's other people out there, but you also know that the person who came to see you again is there. You're like, "I hope he's happy again."

I am now even more persuaded of the urgent need to study why Socrates was accused. The dislike of philosophy is perennial, and the seeds of the condemnation of Socrates are present at all times, not in the bosoms of pleasure-seekers, who don't give a damn, but in those of high-minded and idealistic persons who do not want to submit their aspirations to examination.