Sam Shepard Quotes

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Sam Shepard

Profession : Playwright

Birth : November 5, 1943

My old man tried to force on me a notion of what it was to be a 'man.' And it destroyed my dad.

Sam Shepard

I got to New York when I was eighteen. I was knocking around, trying to be an actor, writer, musician, whatever happened.

Sam Shepard

After the falling out with my father, I worked on a couple of ranches - thoroughbred layup farms, actually - out toward Chino, California. That was fine for a little while, but I wanted to get out completely, and twenty miles away wasn't far enough.

Sam Shepard

The thing about American writers is that, as a group, they get stuck in the same idea: that we're a continent and the world falls away after us. And it's just nonsense.

Sam Shepard

I'm still very much a believer in the spontaneity of certain kinds of writing. But then you have to eventually, when you're writing a long play, make adjustments along the way - all kinds of adjustments.

Sam Shepard

I've been so spoiled in the theater, writing plays where I can just do exactly what I want and nobody messes with me.

Sam Shepard

When I just sit around my house and work, I can work two, three hours, and then I go off and ride a horse or do something that I perceive to be a lot more fun.

Sam Shepard

I never considered myself a movie star, and I didn't want to become a movie star, because as soon as you do, you throw away that possibility of playing character. You really do. All of a sudden you're just an entity, you know?

Sam Shepard

I think a part of the reason that those early plays were short was that I just kept having these ideas, and I'd just go off and write them. I wasn't trying to write one-act plays - it's just how the ideas would be expressed. Every condition I was in seemed like it could be a play.

Sam Shepard

I feel very lucky and privileged to be a writer. I feel lucky in the sense that I can branch out into prose and tell different kinds of stories and stuff. But being a writer is so great because you're literally not dependent on anybody.

Sam Shepard

Writing for theatre is certainly different to writing an essay or any other kind of fiction or prose: it's physical. You're also telling a story, but sometimes the story isn't exactly what you intend; maybe you uncover something you had no idea you were going to uncover.

Sam Shepard

I'm a great believer in chaos. I don't believe that you start with a formula and then you fulfill the formula. Chaos is a much better instigator, because we live in chaos - we don't live in a rigorous form.

Sam Shepard

The funny thing about having all this so-called success is that behind it is a certain horrible emptiness.

Sam Shepard

I think without writing I would feel completely useless.

Sam Shepard

I was shot in the wrist when I was a kid. Deliberately.

Sam Shepard

The words I overuse are all adverbs.

Sam Shepard

All of the great writers whom I admire have died. I guess the most recent one would be Marquez.

Sam Shepard

I am always relaxed.

Sam Shepard

Personality is everything that's false in a human: everything that's been added on to him and contrived.

Sam Shepard

More than anything, falling in love causes a certain female thing in a man to manifest, oddly enough.

Sam Shepard