Rodman Philbrick Quotes

I think if you're writing a play, it should be its own end game; you'll never get to do a good one unless you know it's not a blueprint for a film; you're not going to get the action right and the story right.

I find playwriting to be incredibly difficult compared to screenwriting. Part of it is that I grew up watching movies and not watching plays.

I would like to write a play.

It's wonderful to be able to sit down and write a play.

For me, a play is a form of writing which isn't complete until it is interpreted by actors. But it's still a form of writing. And so most of my time is spent thinking about how to write a sentence.

When you're writing plays, it's possible to believe you don't have any real world skill. When you're adapting, it is really all about the mechanics, so you feel closer to, I don't know, an accountant or someone who has a body of information. It's not all about temperament.

What really happened was one day I decided to write a new kind of play.

Writing a new play shouldn't be seen as a mystery belonging to a priesthood, but as a challenge, a technical challenge, just to get into it.

I write plays instinctively. I don't like writing movie scripts.

I've written a couple screenplays and half-finished plays.

I wish I could remember how to write a play. I can't remember how they happened.

I don't find writing for the theater that different from writing a rock song.

I want to write a play. I'd like to do an original musical. I should probably put together a poetry collection.

I'm not a playwright.

Yeah, I have the detail-obsessed, controlling personality of a novelist, but I somehow ended up writing plays.

It's well known that actors are lousy writers.

Lizzy Weiss is such a great writer, and she really writes for the performances.

I love novels, but I'm not a novelist. I'm just a dramatist, which means I write lines for actors. That's all I have ever wanted to do.

Any play is hard to write, and plays are getting harder and harder to get on the stage.

Choosing to write a play is some kind of surrender. I don't make an outline. I sit and work, and suddenly the door opens, and out it comes.

I became a playwright and screenwriter. Italian-Americans were my particular specialty. I liked the way they talked. There was something free in it.

I did write a couple of original screenplays, but I'd rather write plays.

Writing a play, you have to retain it all in your head - you need more time. With prose, you can snatch an hour here, an hour there.

I was trained as a straight dramatist.

When you're 19 and writing plays, you think every actor is full of it. They just can't handle your brilliant material.