113 Drama Quotes

By whatever means it is accomplished, the prime business of a play is to arouse the passions of its audience so that by the route of passion may be opened up new relationships between a man and men, and between men and Man. Drama is akin to the other inventions of man in that it ought to help us to know more, and not merely to spend our feelings.

Acting should be bigger than life. Scripts should be bigger than life. It should all be bigger than life.

He played the King as though under momentary apprehension that someone else was about to play the ace.

I think that's what distinguishes Schmidt, really. In the movies now, so much of what is appealing to an audience is the dramatic or has to do with science fiction, and Schmidt is simply human. There's no melodrama; there's no device, It's just about a human being.

I like drama. I love being in a drama where I get to be the funny guy. That's what I really love the most.

Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy In sceptred pall come sweeping by, Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line, Or the tale of Troy divine.

If you believe, as the Greeks did, that man is at the mercy of the gods, then you write tragedy. The end is inevitable from the beginning. But if you believe that man can solve his own problems and is at nobody's mercy, then you will probably write melodrama.

The error in the art-genre of Opera consists herein: a Means of expression (Music) has been made the end, while the End of expression (the Drama) has been made a means.

One recalls how much the creative impulse of the best-sellers depends upon self-pity. It is an emotion of great dramatic potential.

Dullness in matters of government is a good sign, and not a bad one - in particular, dullness in parliamentary government is a test of its excellence, an indication of its success.

Show me a character whose life arouses my curiosity, and my flesh begins crawling with suspense.

The trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades.

'If heaven is the reason and dieing is the door, than why aren't we all leaving what's the drama for?'

I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself, 'All right, then, I'll GO to hell.'

Farce may often border on tragedy; indeed, farce is nearer tragedy in its essence than comedy is.

A tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action ... with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions. (1449b24)

Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.

God will give him blood to drink!

Folks, all I can say is sit back and relax. I think we're in for a real culinary donnybrook here. (smiles proudly) That means brawl.

I write about private dilemmas that have become public calamities.

Though the most be players, some must be spectators.

There is nothing so interesting on stage than a man trying to get a knot out of his shoelaces.

Most reporters I've spoken with want very badly to understand what is happening to her, but the 'why' is really very unimportant. That is just not the point of the show. The journey is how she will deal with this situation, and how it will change her life.

I'm having so much fun with the poisonous people Spreading rumours and lies and stories they made up Some make you sing and some make you scream One makes you wish that you'd never been seen.

On this night 25 years ago, from the testicles of Vince McMahon himself came something so horrifying it sends chills up and down the bodies of men all over the world: tonight marks the birth of Stephanie McMahon.

The candlelight dances off her mahogany coloured skin as she un-robes - AND THEN THE CAGE COMES DOWN!

As for myself, I am simply Hop-Frog, the jester - and this is my last jest.

'I enjoy being a bitch. I enjoy being surrounded by bitches. Boredom is the biggest disease in the world, darling. Sometimes I think there must be more to life than rushing round the world like a mad thing getting bored.'

For I am shave as neigh as any frere. But yit I praye unto youre curteisye: Beeth hevy again, or elles moot I die.

The material of a dramatist is always some conflict of human feeling with circumstances.

The actors are, it seems, the usual three: Husband and wife and lover.

'Air! Air!' croaked Kralefsky, 'Give me air!' 'Interesting,' said Colonel Ribbindane. 'Saw a pygmy like that once in the Congo... been trapped in an elephant's stomach. The elephant is the largest African quadruped..' 'Do get him out,' said Mother agitatedly. 'Get some brandy.' 'Fan him! Blow on him!' shrilled Margo, and burst into tears. 'He's dying, he's dying, and he never finished his trick.'

Jack: Smell?... What do I want with smelling salts?

'Mani Madhava Chakyar was performing sikhinisalabha... Butterflies fly all around. Some of them fell into the fire below. The anguish was reflected in the actor's eyes. Ha! There they come out without a burn! What a relief! They came again. The actor continued the performance. Only his eyes move: The audience was spellbound. They did not know that an hour has passed!' - About his world famous abhinaya of the shloka shikhinisalabha from Subhadradhananjayam.[18]

As a rule, you see, I'm not lugged into Family Rows. On the occasions when Aunt is calling Aunt like mastodons bellowing across premieval swamps and Uncle James's letter about Cousin Mabel's peculiar behaviour is being shot round the familty circle ('Please read this carefully and send it on Jane') the clan has a tendency to ignore me. It's one of the advantages I get from being a bachelor - and, according to my nearest and dearest, practically a half-witted bachelor at that.

I turned to Aunt Agatha, whose demeanour was now rather like that of one who, picking daisies on the railway, has just caught the down express in the small of the back.

Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing-glove.

'You must remember, Father,' said Mavis, in a voice which would have had an Eskimo slapping his ribs and calling for the steam-heat, 'that this girl was probably very pretty. So many of these New York girls are. That would, of course, explain Frederick's behaviour.'

He then gave a hideous laugh and added that, if anybody was interested in his plans, he was going to join the Foreign Legion, that cohort of the damned in which broken men may toil and die and dying, forget. 'Beau Widgeon?' said the Egg, impressed. 'What ho!'

Everything written is as good as it is dramatic. It need not declare itself in form, but it is drama or nothing.

'Every drama school in the country turned me down, and so I was lucky to study drama at all, even if it was lowly Birmingham University. But even when I came out with my degree, my mother promptly insisted I go straight to secretarial college to have something to fall back on, just in case - which didn't exactly fill me with confidence.'

Drama assumes an order. If only so that it might have - by disrupting that order - a way of surprising.

Surrounded by assassins!

Samson Agonistes (1671)

Coriolanus

Cymbeline

Twelfth Night