Vaclav Havel Quotes

The ones that work out really and ones that become something to the audience, those are the most important people.

No drama, however great, is entirely independent of the stage on which it is given.

Theater dates very quickly.

I hope to keep entertaining in some way until I can't physically entertain any longer. It's what I was born to do, and I love this profession.

The part an actor played on stage was once written on a separate roll of paper.

We do play to our audience. It's very important. You can't create music in a vacuum.

I began coming to Paris in the 1960s when I was told audiences here liked my work. More than 20 of my plays have been produced in Paris, and several have had long runs and have returned in revivals.

Theater was definitely part of my roots. My father would take me to plays, and then my mother was always on the lookout for other talent and taking me to see plays. I saw Frank Langella in 'Dracula'... Great, great performances. I was a theater rat, hanging out backstage.

The conversation of how you do a play is my favorite conversation in the whole wide world: what a play is, why it's different than anything else, the math of the way that human behavior has to be calibrated theatrically versus anything else.

It would be amazing to write a song that could be sung 100 years from now by a teenage girl and still be relevant to her - that's a dream of songwriting, maybe.

I did 'Prodigal Son' at Manhattan Theatre Club.

I don't like to play above or below people's heads. Basically, I just like to get up in front of a crowd and rip it up.

When you play, do not trouble yourself as to who is listening. Yet always play as though a master listened to you.

We set out to become a band for our time. But sometimes if you do a good-enough job, you become a band for all time.

With music, you can create instant trust with an audience. You can hear three notes, and you surrender to it, whereas it takes you about ten minutes of language before people begin to trust you in a play.

The most important playwright's gift is to hit your time and speak to your time.

To be always relevant, you have to say things which are eternal.

You are writing for your contemporaries - not for Posterity. If you are lucky, your contemporaries will become Posterity.

Awards mean nothing to comedians. What matters is the audience, how you're doing - artistically, for the most part - at that moment.

When I see an amazing play or movie, it inspires me as an actress and a filmmaker.

It is very important for young people keep their sense of wonder and keep asking why.

I believe what I have to say is important, and I believe the people coming to hear me are important, and so the occasion of itself alone has an importance, which forces me to stare down my nerves.

You've got to trust the ground you're standing on and the work you've done in telling your story. The goal should be to bring those thousands of people - viewers - together and make them one. When you feel that happening, it's usually in silence, not applause or laughter.

To me there is no past or future in art. If a work of art does not live in the present, it must not be considered at all.

I love music. That's my first love. I'm actually going to start working on that full-time very soon, but I love acting as well. It satisfies a different part of who I am. I love to pretend, to imagine, try new things, work with different people, and just see how far I can go.