Tony Kushner Quotes

When I used to teach writing, what I would tell my playwriting students is that while you're writing your plays, you're also writing the playwright. You're developing yourself as a persona, as a public persona. It's going to be partly exposed through the writing itself and partly created by all the paraphernalia that attaches itself to writing. But you aren't simply an invisible being or your own private being at work. You're kind of a public figure, as well.

The thing about Hitchcock which is quite extraordinary for a director of that time, he had a very strong sense of his own image and publicizing himself. Just a very strong sense of himself as the character of Hitchcock.

I could have had my husband put me on a lot of TV shows every day, but I chose not to. I am a serious businesswoman. I don't enjoy being out there on TV; it's not what I do well.

What is difficult is the promotion, balancing the public side of a writer's life with the writing. I think that's something a lot of writers are having to face. Writers have become much more public now.

I think I've been asked a lot more than most TV producers to go on-camera. But I just do what I do and don't think about the package.

There's a big difference to me between the people who are famous and just accept the fact that it comes with the territory of what they do, and the people who actively seek it out, who intentionally put themselves in the position of being on camera and being famous.

You have to be savvy to be a celebrity. You have to create a personality and shove that out. It just seems fatuous to me. Professionally, it's a good idea. But I can't do it.

I'm not a celebrity. I'm intentionally and defiantly not a celebrity. I don't have any interest in it. I don't have any talent for it. I keep my personal life out of my public life as cleanly as I can.

The grand surprise has really been the fact that being an author, which to me had always implied being a private person, actually requires you to be a public person as well, and those are two separate entities to me.

I'm not a self-promoter. I'm not on TV all the time.

I can't turn on the television without seeing me, or open the newspaper without seeing me and, honestly, I'm sick to death of me.

I think the more you expose yourself as a celebrity, the less interesting you are to watch in your work, because if you're putting yourself out there all the time, you're not holding anything back.

I don't, frankly, want to be on television.

For a while, I really wasn't fussed about having a public profile. I have come to the realization that I am a lot more comfortable with it than I was.

As far as my absence from the public eye is concerned, that's because I'm publicity shy - something which is not considered good nowadays.

[Truman Capote] was not only just selling his writing, but he was selling himself as a person.

The visual world has blown up, the world of writing has blown up; there's so much text online. Anyone and everyone can express themselves. It's a lot to think about as an artist. Also, that the persona of the artist might actually be of some importance. When I came of age, it was important to be quiet and hang back and be mysterious. I knew artists who didn't even want to show up at their own openings. They never wanted to have their picture taken, didn't want to autograph a book, didn't want to answer a question. I came of age in a world where it was "Let the work speak for itself."

I do not like to "interest" the public with myself.

In fact, in Europe, I'm more kind of this bloke what writes lots of stuff.

If you get your face and your name out there enough, people will start to recognize you.

I haven't yet figured out how to be a celebrity; that's something I'm learning, and I wish there were a course on how to handle it. I have to be aware that my kinesphere may be larger than I want it to be.

There's something not normal about you if you're writing a book about yourself, or about anything. And if you're the kind of person who can deal with being recognized by strangers and if that's tolerable or pleasing to you, and not immediately terrifying, that's not normal either.

Good heavens, television is something you appear on; you don't watch.

Donald Trump is an entertainer. Okay. He goes on shows like Howard Stern's to get people to watch his program. "The Apprentice" or buy his books or whatever. When he goes in there, he back then when it happened was basically trying to entertain. All right. So he had no public policy on his mind, none of that. All right. He's an entertain.

Most people in the world have seen more of me on-screen than my kids have.