Terrence McNally Quotes

Technical skill counts for nothing if it is used only to manufacture films which have little to do with humanity.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I think viewers are hungry for shows in which people say something meaningful.

As an artist, I am here to get involved in meaningful films. But that does not mean only films like 'Arabikkadha' should be made. If you give an overdose of such films, the subject will become jaded.

I don't believe that art is just for entertainment. I want to create art that is meaningful in some way.

I still feel that a movie has to attempt to say something - even if it fails miserably. But I've sort of given up on believing that I'm going to change the world with every film I choose to act in.

I think the audience know which films are aimed at their pocket, and which films are aimed at their soul. There are a lot of films out there made by people who are genuinely trying to make a change.

The point is to expand the scope of what a movie can possibly mean or be, to get people involved because they're artistic or understand the point of the material, not just because they fit a certain bill aesthetically.

I wanted to make films that were culturally relevant in my own country, that challenged people, and that people talked about.

Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which we desire.

I think that's always the goal of art, is to make people ask themselves questions.

The best songs/films/collections expose truths about life and make them universally accessible; they progress humanity.

I think that I am interested in the resonance between character drama and high stakes, either situational or political or social or other kind of elevated drama, and I tend to find that those things combust.

I pour my blood, sweat, and tears into a movie. What I always look for is a message and a social consciousness: a relevance to what's happening in our world.

I want to be a part of films that have some kind of social comment and that will help people evolve.

I don't think a film that has no effect on people or society is a good film.

At this point, in 2008, if you put out a book, a movie, or write a verse, paint a painting, it should have some sort of social value.

I hope that there will be more and more games that will have something to say and become a little bit more meaningful.

A poet is no rattlebrain, saying what comes uppermost, and, because he says every thing, saying, at last, something good; but a heart in unison with his time and country. There is nothing whimsical or fantastic in his production, but sweet and sad earnest, freighted with the weightiest convictions, and pointed with the most determined aim which any man or class knows of in his times.

The deepest secret in our heart of hearts is that we are writing because we love the world.

Maybe this is a utopian view of art but I do believe that art can function as a vehicle, that it isn't just a cultural pursuit, something that happens in art galleries. Unless art is linked to experience and the fear and joy of that, it becomes mere icing on the cake.

What most of us must be involved in--whether we teach or write, make films, write films, direct films, play music, act, whatever we do--has to not only make people feel good and inspired and at one with other people around them, but also has to educate a new generation to do this very modest thing: change the world.

Write to the mind and heart, and let the ear Glean after what it can.

Our jobs as artists is to make sure our art tells a real story and let people see themselves in these characters. It's about having a conversation about being better people.

if you don't keep and guard and mature your force, and above all, have time and quiet to perfect your work, you will be writing things not much better than you did five years ago. ... you must write to the human heart, the great consciousness that all humanity goes to make up. Otherwise what might be strength in a writer is only crudeness, and what might be insight is only observation; sentimemnt falls to sentimentality - you can write about life, but never write life itself.

Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible; Shakespeare's plays, for instance, seem to hang there complete by themselves. But when the web is pulled askew, hooked up at the edge, torn in the middle, one remembers that these webs are not spun in midair by incorporeal creatures, but are the work of suffering human beings, and are attached to the grossly material things, like health and money and the houses we live in.