Tracy Letts Quotes

It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.

It's wonderful to be able to sit down and write a play.

I had always written. I had written stories and poems. Then I started writing plays.

When I was first starting to write plays, I quite literally had never heard of the idea of studying playwriting. I wouldn't have studied it even if I had heard of it.

You know, I remember watching Morgan Freeman when he did the two Alex Cross movies, and he's so confident that he's going to knock the scene dead. And I'm really confident that I can tell a good story now, so I just don't worry about things.

For me, a play is a form of writing which isn't complete until it is interpreted by actors. But it's still a form of writing. And so most of my time is spent thinking about how to write a sentence.

As an actor, there is room for a certain amount of creativity, but you're always ultimately going to be saying somebody else's words. I don't think I'd have the stamina, skill or ability to write a novel, but I'd love to write short stories and poetry, because those are my two passions.

The instinct to impersonate produces the actor; the desire to provide pleasure by impersonations produces the playwright; the desire to provide this pleasure with adequate characterization and dialogue memorable in itself produces dramatic literature.

I think being an actor makes me a better writer and vice versa. I know the kinds of roles I would kill to play, and I try to create them for others.

One thing I like about trying to write is that I can possibly write myself a role. Otherwise, you're at the mercy of whatever roles are out there that people are willing to give to you.

I never wanted to be a playwright.

Plays were really my last option. The reason I didn't write plays initially was because I thought theatre was the worst of all the art forms.

If I have a long period of time away from acting, I tend to write.

I think visually... so, even when I'm writing a play, I'm envisioning it.

I am trying to write a play that is big and I feel represents me - that's my big ambition.

I wanted to write plays. I was at Yale graduate school at the time for English literature, not for acting... I liked the idea of collaboration, and I thought if I'm gonna write plays, I should learn something about speaking the lines that I might try to write.

When I was a kid, I used to make up all these characters. I love comedy a lot, and I don't get to do it often. Somewhere in the middle, I shifted into doing drama.

It's hard to find a play that's right for me to do. Rather than waiting around for the right script to come along, I decided to write one myself.

I thought I wanted to be a playwright because I was interested in stories and telling stories.

I'm not a playwright.

Essentially, I never know what I'm going to do until I read the script, but a good story is a good story. I would like to do more modern stuff, but ultimately, it doesn't matter to me - good stories are timeless.

It's all about story and character with me, and I don't care if the job is on daytime or prime time or the web. Hey, give me a good character and someone to listen, and I'll do my acting on a street corner.

I always enjoyed writing. I did playlets in high school, I did radio shows in college. That's one of the reasons I went down to Second City, because you could do acting and writing.

I'm just attracted to good material and great characters and that can come in any form, whether it's television or film or a theatre piece.

The play is a marvelous form, but it demands less than a novel.