Edward Albee Quotes

Success can be destructive to the creative process. I say it all the time: success is as dangerous as total failure.

The fact that people are embracing me so well as a new artist and being taken so seriously is something I'm really surprised by.

There are movies that I've made where I thought I was going to be good, but when it was cut it together it wasn't. And there are a lot of movies that, for one reason or another, just don't become popular. So to me it's always been a little bit of a roll of the dice. That's the way it goes.

People who come to see me have expectations. If I don't live up to those expectations, I'd be a failure.

With each film, you are still trying to get the length and measure right. And failure is all about others' perception of you. When you have one success, they think you know it all. But if you fail, they think they know it all.

At the end of the day, nobody cares how much you tried, what the deal was, or if you were a good guy or a bad guy.

Once you have had success there are always people focusing on why it happened. Inevitably, there is a lot of scrutiny when you don't achieve the same again.

Critics can get you critical acclaim - nothing more than that. Success or failure depends on the public.

As a goalkeeper, you are only remembered for your last game.

When shots are going for six and you're playing well, everyone is trying to big you up. Mis=hit one, get out, all the negative people come out.

There's loads of eyes and expectations. People are almost waiting for you to make a mistake so they can say, 'Oh, she's a one-hit wonder!'

If you start badly, and the crowd get on your case, there is no way back. But if you start well and your confidence is high all that booing becomes music to your ears.

When you are one of the best coaches in the world, it is normal to attract bad reviews if you lose a couple of games.

All I am looking for is a fine combination of critical and commercial acclaim. Whether conventional or unconventional - does not matter.

When you win you're going to get fans chanting your name and when you don't do great they're going to give you stick.

With one film after another becoming a hit, nervousness only grows.

I had so much out there, the world was going crazy about 'Comes Alive!' I didn't need to go and rush into something else. You're only as good as your last record, so don't put one out for a while.

The greatest dangers have their allurements, if the want of success is likely to be attended with a degree of glory. Middling dangers are horrid, when the loss of reputation is the inevitable consequence of ill success.

The American system demands success, and in order to succeed we must first believe that we can. Yet our society, with its intolerance of failure and poverty, traps millions of people in positions where any kind of success seems impossible to contemplate, and in which failure itself is a kind of passive rebellion against their own misery and the social system which created it in the first place. To succeed it is necessary to accept the world as it is and rise above it.

I've done a lot of movies, and you really never know. You do a movie and you think that it's great, and then you see it and it doesn't work.

Rock of the ages been a really interesting job. It's been exhausting. It's been the hardest thing I've ever done because it's just so big, and I haven't had a lot of time. And I'm just kind of blowing through this. And everybody's, like, happy, and giving thumbs up. Most of the actors have said "this is the best role they've ever had." So you know, that's important to me.

Nobody's going to like my next movie because they liked Trainwreck [2015]. It has to work on its own, and that keeps it really scary.

Obviously, David [Shore] probably has pressure because House was such an amazing show. But I try not to go into these jobs, thinking that I have to live up to people's expectations.

No matter how many people are screaming your name or how many Number One hits you have, you can still wake up and feel like a loser.

I like expectations, with expectations, you have people coming at you from a place of doubt.