Quotes by Marsha Norman

About Marsha Norman:

Marsha Norman is an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. She received the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play 'night, Mother. She wrote the book and lyrics for such Broadway musicals as The Secret Garden, for which she won a Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical, and The Red Shoes, as well as the libretto for the musical The Color Purple and the book for the musical The Bridges of Madison County. She is co-chair of the playwriting department at The Juilliard School.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Dreams are illustrations...from the book your soul is writing about you.

Marsha Norman

I'm just not having a very good time and I don't have any reason to think it'll get anything but worse. I'm tired. I'm hurt. I'm sad. I feel used.

Marsha Norman

Mama, I know you used to ride the bus. Riding the bus and it’s hot and bumpy and crowded and too noisy and more than anything in the world you want to get off and the only reason in the world you don’t get off is it’s still fifty blocks from wh...

Marsha Norman

No. You can't. And I can't do anything either, about my life, to change it, make it better, make me feel better about it. Like it better, make it work. But I can stop it. Shut it down, turn it off like the radio when there's nothing on I want to list...

Marsha Norman

Jesus was a suicide, if you ask me.

Marsha Norman

...I only told you about it because I thought I might get a laugh out of you for once even if it wasn't the truth, Jessie. Things don't have to be true to talk about 'em, you know.

Marsha Norman

I see it on his face. I hear it when he talks. We look out at the world and we see the same thing: Not Fair. And the only difference between us is Ricky's out there trying to get even. And he knows not trust anybody and he got it straight from me. An...

Marsha Norman

Family is just accident, Jessie. It's nothing personal, hon. They don't mean to get on your nerves. They don't even mean to be your family, they just are.

Marsha Norman

The theater is a communal event, like church. The playwright constructs a mass to be performed for a lot of people. She writes a prayer, which is really just the longings of one heart.

Marsha Norman

I grew up at the piano, and I longed to write musicals.

Marsha Norman

After I won the Pulitzer, there was this sense of, 'OK, that's enough for you. Now go away.' What I wanted was to keep writing, keep working. But no one would produce anything of mine they didn't think would be as big as 'night, Mother.'

Marsha Norman

I feel that I speak the musical language.

Marsha Norman

When 'night, Mother' opened, I did not know how long it would be before I would have another show on Broadway.

Marsha Norman

In the theater, when people hear that you're writing a play, they want to know what it's all about, whether there's a role for them. You write it fairly quickly, and it becomes a group activity before you're really ready to have company.

Marsha Norman

Think of a musical as a string of pearls. If you don't have a string, you can't put the pearls around your neck.

Marsha Norman

People do think that if they avoid the truth, it might change to something better before they have to hear it.

Marsha Norman

At the heart of the failure of most plays is the inability to carry on a thoughtful conversation about your work with yourself.

Marsha Norman

What I hope to do is create a play that investigates the ongoing violence toward women and children in the world, and searches for some kind of answer to the question, 'What Can We Do?'

Marsha Norman

Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you.

Marsha Norman

My view is that musicals are love stories with great final scenes. It's just that simple. Musicals are also conflicts between two worlds. And by those criteria, 'The Color Purple' is actually exactly the kind of story that makes for a great musical. ...

Marsha Norman

Author Bio

  • NameMarsha Norman
  • DescriptionAmerican playwright, screenwriter and novelist
  • BornSeptember 21, 1947
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionScreenwriter; Music Educator
  • AwardsPulitzer Prize For Drama