100 Quotes Every Theater Producer, Playwright, Director, Actor, etc. Must Read (Updated 2021)

I honey a practiced quote.

They're what start me up in the forenoon.  Even more so than java.

Run into, a few years ago I started writing skilful ones on my whiteboard in the AM and so I would stare at them all day long.  They'd continue me going, fifty-fifty when things weren't going well.  (You can check them out here.)

I've put together quite a quote drove since then, and I idea I'd curate all my faves well-nigh the theater and put them here with the promise that they'll inspire all of yous Theater Makers out in that location to. . . well . . . brand more theater.

Because as I've said, I believe the world is a better place if in that location is more theater in it.  So I hope just one of these inspires you lotequallythey've inspired me.

  1. "Movies volition make you famous; Telly will brand you lot rich; But theatre will make y'all good." -Terrence Mann
  2. "Concur fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a cleaved-winged bird that cannot wing." – Langston Hughes
  3. "You never know where people are going to turn up in the future…be nice to everybody." – Robyn Goodman
  4. "Theater is a verb earlier it is a substantive, an act earlier it is a place." – Martha Graham
  5. "Live similar you'll die tomorrow, work like you lot don't demand the money, and trip the light fantastic toe similar nobody's watching." – Bob Fosse
  6. "Great theatre is about challenging how we recall and encouraging us to daydream most a world we aspire to." – Willem Dafoe
  7. "Be so skillful they can't ignore yous." – Steve Martin
  8. "We don't stop playing because we grow sometime; we grow old because nosotros cease playing." – George Bernard Shaw
  9. "The play is not in the words, it'southward in you!" – Stella Adler
  10. "The mission of the theatre, later on all, is to change, to enhance the consciousness of people to their human possibilities." – Arthur Miller

    Want more than advice from Broadway mentors? Cheque out www.castofmentors.com.

  11. "You should experience a menstruation of joy because yous are alive. Your trunk volition feel full of life. That is what you must give from the stage. Your life. No less. That is art: to requite all y'all have." – Anton Chekhov
  12. "Nothing in theatre has any meaning earlier or subsequently. Significant is at present." – Peter Brook
  13. "Don't let anybody tell y'all that yous can't exercise it. You actually accept to ignore all the reasons not to do information technology and follow your heart." – Lynne Meadow
  14. "It volition never be perfect, but perfect is overrated. Perfect is boring." – Tina Fey
  15. "To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong." – Joseph Chilton Pearce
  16. "Unless you learn how to exist in your head, you'll never learn how to create." – Lin-Manuel Miranda
  17. "You've gotta exist original. Because if yous're like someone else, what practise they demand you for?" – Bernadette Peters
  18. "Overcome the notion that y'all must be regular. It robs yous of the take chances to exist extraordinary." – Uta Hagen
  19.  " Happiness was useless to me.  Information technology was heartache that filled my bag.  What happy man has need of Shakespeare?"  – Jennifer Donnelly
  20. "Don't let class get more of import than the substance of your center and mind. Don't let commerce determine what you practise exclusively." – Avery Brooks
  21. "The power of art can break the shackles that bind and divide human beings." – Daisaku Ikeda
  22. "Don't compare your career to anyone else's. It'south tough when y'all're in a business that'southward competitive. I was having a difficult time with that in college. Now, I'grand having to learn to be patient and be where I am." – Danielle Brooks
  23. "We all deal with failure. If you're lucky plenty to have a long career, it'southward office of the feel." – David Henry Hwang
  24. "The arts brand a bridge across this world in ways that nix else tin." – Julie Andrews
  25. "You gotta have a dream. If you don't have a dream, how y'all gonna take a dream come up true?" – Oscar Hammerstein II
  26. "Everyone has literature inside of them." – Anna Deavere Smith
  27. "Success is similar failure. It'south how y'all perceive it. It's what you do with it, non how you attain it." – Stephen Sondheim
  28. "In that location isn't annihilation I wanted to do that I haven't. At the same time, in that location isn't annihilation I've ever done that I didn't want to do better." – Richard Rodgers
  29. "Always give them the erstwhile fire, even when yous feel like a squashed cake of water ice." – Ethel Merman
  30. "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." – Samuel Beckett
  31. "I believe in serendipity, simply I also believe at that place are times when you take to be the one who lines up everything so it can fall into place." – Susan Stroman
  32. "Showtime, think. Second, dream. Tertiary, believe. And finally, dare." – Walt Disney
  33. "Everyone deserves to accept their story fully told." – Dominique Morisseau
  34. "Laughter is much more important than applause. Applause is nigh a duty. Laughter is a reward." – Carol Channing
  35. "Work hard, exercise the all-time you lot can, don't ever lose organized religion in yourself and have no observe of what other people say about y'all." – Noel Coward
  36. "Write what you feel. Write because of that need for expression." – Dorothy Fields
  37. "Don't accept that others know y'all better than you know yourself." – Sonia Friedman Looking for more inspiration from Broadway mentors? Check out world wide web.castofmentors.com.
  38. "If you're not invited to the party, throw your ain!" – Diahann Caroll
  39. "Don't wait a pat on the back for only doing your task, only know that yous'll get one for doing it exceptionally well." – Lea Salonga
  40. "We know what we are, only know not what we may exist." – William Shakespeare
  41. "Don't try to exist anyone else but yourself, because you are atypical, and your greatest asset is your individuality." – Sutton Foster
  42. "You tin can't get it right all the time, but you lot can attempt your all-time. If you've done that, all that'southward left is to take your shortcomings and have the backbone to try to overcome them." – Idina Menzel
  43. "All of the challenges will make you observe things about yourself that you never really knew." – Cicely Tyson
  44. "It all starts with self-reflection. And and then y'all take to exist dauntless. You have to figure out how to articulate what your dreams are." – Glenn Close
  45. "Not everyone is going to like what y'all do or what you have to offer; nevertheless, if yous tin't run into yourself doing anything else, and you take the drive and ambition, get the training and go for it." – Kristin Chenoweth
  46. "Somewhere in our Deoxyribonucleic acid we know  that stories are out there to help united states understand what we're doing here on this planet." – Theresa Rebeck
  47. "You lot take to stop yourself from even thinking near failing." – Julie Taymor
  48. "At that place is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come." – Victor Hugo
  49. "Victories aren't born on the field. You create them during practice – day in and day out." – Silvia Pencak
  50. "Exist brave. Accept risks. Nothing tin substitute experience." – Paulo Coelho
  51. "Theater and storytelling has the power to alter lives." – Liesl Tommy
  52. "Don't wait for the perfect moment. Accept the moment and go far perfect!" – Aryn Kyle
  53. "If you lot human activity brave, you lot can seem brave, and if you lot practice information technology enough, you can take yourself into believing y'all're brave." – Kelli O'Hara
  54. "To practice whatsoever fine art, no matter how well or badly, is a manner to make your soul grow. So exercise it." – Kurt Vonnegut
  55. "All you can do is exercise good piece of work, and exercise the good work for the sake of doing good work and your development equally an creative person." – Audra McDonald
  56. "Practice you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage." – Edward Albee
  57. "You tin't guess your success by someone else's. You tin can't be afraid to fail." – Patina Miller
  58. "Don't listen to anyone who doesn't know how to dream." – Liza Minnelli
  59. "If there's a story that y'all want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you lot must write information technology." – Toni Morrison
  60. "All one needs to write a story is i feeling and four walls." – Doris Betts
  61. "Some people dream of success, while other people get up every morn and make information technology happen." – Wayne Huizenga
  62. "Works of fine art make rules; rules practise not make works of art." – Claude Debussy
  63. "You're worse than decent. You're virtuous." – Eugene O'Neill
  64. "He who seeks shall find." – Sophocles
  65. "No ane ever made a difference past being like everyone else." – P.T. Barnum
  66. "If you want to honour your arts and crafts and yourself, strive for the nobler instincts." – Patti LuPone
  67. "I of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you don't utter." – James Earl Jones
  68. "Be yourself… And shoot for the stars. Obviously dreams really practice come true." – Laura Osnes
  69. "Don't wait for people to tell y'all who yous are. Show them." – Laura Benanti
  70. "You simply have to be open and ready, and permit it all happen." – Angela Lansbury
  71. "Always be a outset-charge per unit version of yourself, instead of a 2d-rate version of somebody else." – Judy Garland
  72. "Y'all have got to discover you lot, what you lot do, and trust it." – Barbra Streisand
  73. "At the end of the solar day, give up your worries and  give thanks for the journey." – Ben Vereen
  74. "I am not here to change the world. I am irresolute the world considering I am here." – Lisa Wilson
  75. "Time goes on. So whatever you're going to exercise. Do information technology. Do it at present. Don't await." – Robert De Niro
  76. "Y'all never know how far you're gonna go if yous don't leap." – Robbie Fairchild
  77. "You are enough. You lot are so enough. Information technology'due south unbelievable how enough you are." – Sierra Boggess
  78. "The path to moments of greatness in your life will be paved, in office, with your spectacular failures." – Leslie Odom Jr.
  79. "From a minor seed a mighty body may grow." – Aeschylus
  80. "Everybody has their own path. Just with conviction and subject field you tin make anything happen." – Sonya Tayeh
  81. "Acquire how to take the worst state of affairs and let it be the catalyst for our undoing, which is and so our transformation." – Eve Ensler
  82. "Information technology'south good to call back… so you know yous demand to do now, so you know that y'all ain't got forever merely right now…" – Tarell Alvin McCraney
  83. "Exist bold. Envision yourself living a life that you honey. Believe, even if you tin only muster your faith for just this moment, believe that the sort of life you wish to live is, at this very moment, just waiting for you to summon it up. And when you wish for it, you begin moving toward information technology, and it, in turn, begins moving toward yous." – Suzan-Lori Parks
  84. "At that place are no shortcuts to hard work." – Adrienne Warren
  85. "But arrive happen. Figure out a way to practice it and work really hard." – Casey Nicholaw Desire your ain Broadway mentor? How about 50? www.castofmentors.com
  86. "There's e'er uncertainty and fear. If you lot're a human being, everybody's got information technology." – Keala Settle
  87. "The artist'southward office is to enhance the consciousness of the people. To make them understand life, the world and themselves more completely. That's how I meet information technology. Otherwise, I don't know why you do it." – Amiri Baraka
  88. "Chief your craft, empower yourself, and bask the journey." – Denise Simon
  89. "If y'all're going to go for a thing, there's no point unless you're going all the style." – Cynthia Erivo
  90. "If you gauge how you're doing on whether somebody is responding vocally or non, you're upward a creek. You can't do that; you kind of have to be inside of your piece of work… And tell the story every day. Tell the story. Tell the story. Regardless of how people are responding, tell the story." – Billy Porter
  91. "Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilisation's radical vocalization." – Paul Robeson
  92. "Have a belief in yourself that is bigger than anyone'southward disbelief." – Baronial Wilson
  93. "Those who say it tin't be done are commonly interrupted past others doing it." – James Baldwin
  94. "He knows non his own strength that has not met adversity." – Ben Jonson
  95. "Nobody knows what you want except yous. And nobody will be as distressing equally you if yous don't get it. Wanting some other way to live is proof enough of deserving it. Having it is hard work, but non having it is sheer hell." – Lillian Hellman
  96. "Any form of fine art is a form of ability; it has impact, it can affect change – it tin can non only motility the states, it makes united states move." – Ossie Davis
  97. "Don't look for something big to occur. Outset where yous are, with what you lot have, and that will always atomic number 82 you lot into something greater." – Norm Lewis
  98. "In gild to attain the incommunicable, one must attempt the absurd." – Miguel de Cervantes
  99. "Never do but one thing at a time, and never put off till tomorrow what you can practise today." – Lope de Vega
  100. "Sometimes yous will meet yourself on the road before y'all have a chance to learn the appropriate greeting. Faced with your own possibilities, the hard office is knowing a speech communication is not required. All you have to say is yes." – Pearl Cleage

Check out an unabridged volume featuring 50 of your Broadway mentors, including Kenny Leon, Susan Stroman, Dominique Morisseau, Pasek & Paul, and more than. Become your copy today – www.castofmentors.com

P.S. If you're set to speed things upward but know yous need some help, become on a call with my team. They'll give you lot an honest assessment of where you are and if you're ready to become to the next stage. Click here.

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