Tony Kushner Quotes

Writers often feel obliged to adopt some sort of public appearance.

In America, it stands out, because it's raw, it's big, it's emotional. My face is raw, big and emotional. It didn't work for the longest time.

I'm 19, and, being a public figure, I'm supposed to present myself in a certain way, but it's hard and you're never going to be able to tell people who you are through the media.

I'm very conscious of what I wear, and what I say. I know that if I go out, there will be 10 people who will notice me from head to toe.

In the modern era, it isn't enough to write, you must also be the Writer, with a capital 'W,' and play your part as the protagonist in the cautionary narrative in which you will fail or triumph, be in or out, hot or cold, ride the wheel of fortune.

Every American was to become a performing self.

I didn't write because I had anything to say, but in order to find out what there was to say.

GOOD AS NEW was born out of the idea of writing a play where the stakes were high and the collisions were of a verbal nature. Also I wanted to write a play where people were smarter than I was, and more alive than I feel normally. I became interested in the idea of characters who would surprise me. I guess one could argue that nothing comes out of you that wasn't within you to begin with, but maybe there are ways to trick yourself into becoming more an observer or an advocate for the characters.

Writing is the act of discovery.

Even if something within me is ugly, writing is a pretty good place to play with that thing and to begin to really see it.

The process of writing a book is infinitely more important than the book that is completed as a result of the writing, let alone the success or failure that book may have after it is written . . . the book is merely a symbol of the writing. In writing the book, I am living. I am growing. I am tapping myself. I am changing. The process is the product.

I don't really see myself that way, as some typical sexy young ingénue. I've never been that way. And, for a while, there was a disconnect between who I am and how I present myself on a public platform. That was because I didn't necessarily feel comfortable sharing that much of myself with other people who I didn't know.

Writing is mysterious, and it's supposed to be...any path that gets you there is a good path in the end. But one true thing among all these paths is the need to tap a deep vein of connection between our own uncontrollable interior preoccupations and what we're most concerned about in the world around us. We write in response to that world; we write in response to what we read and learn; and in the end we write out of our deepest selves, the live, breathing, bleeding place where the picture forms, and where it all begins.

As you write plays, you discover what you believe. And until you know what you believe, you can't write a play.

The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation. You are not discovering yourself, but creating yourself anew. Seek therefore, not to find out Who You Are, but seek to determine Who You Want to Be.

You know how writers are... they create themselves as they create their work. Or perhaps they create their work in order to create themselves.

I would often go on as myself, when I wasn't working. And the first time I went on as myself, two people came up and asked me what I was doing and who I was.

Writing has got to be an act of discovery....I write to find out what I'm thinking about.

Writing needs to be practiced; there is a limit to how much can be gleaned from a teacher or a manual. The true essence of writing is out there, in the world, and inside, within yourself. To write, you have to give.

I write to make sense of my life." -John Cheever, quoted in _Cheever - A Life_ (2009) by Blake Bailey

Now I write often. I decided that I need to write for myself - I can't really direct other people's material.

The more I wrote, the more I became a human being. The writing may have seemed monstrous (to some) for it was a violation, but I became a more human individual because of it. I was getting the poison out of my system.

You've got to figure out what works best for you. That's the hard part. I know I can't play as stoic as Hogan, and I can't talk as much as Trevino. You have to be your own person.

Had my credentials been in order I would never have become a writer. Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.

You must write for yourself, above all. That is your only hope of creating something beautiful.