Quotes by Tony Kushner

About Tony Kushner:

Anthony Robert "Tony" Kushner is an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for his play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. He co-authored with Eric Roth the screenplay for the 2005 film Munich, and he wrote the screenplay for the 2012 film Lincoln, both critically acclaimed movies. For his work, he received a National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2013.
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

I go into any movie that's historical fiction thinking, 'OK, I'm here to watch a work of art, something delivering a series of opinions, and if it's a good work of art, these opinions become so deeply embedded in complexity and richness that I won't ...

Tony Kushner

Artists know that diligence counts as much, if not more, as inspiration; in art, as in politics, patience counts as much as revolution.

Tony Kushner

As much as I hate his movies, Oliver Stone has an aspiration I admire, and that is that he wants his art to be part of what makes and changes public policy and cultural practice.

Tony Kushner

People shouldn't trust artists and they shouldn't trust art. Part of the fun of art is that it invites you to interpret it.

Tony Kushner

And I don't consider Broadway the acropolis of theatrical art. I mean Broadway is commercial - that's what it is. It's expensive seats and a lot of them that have to be filled every night. Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway, as far as I'm concerned, i...

Tony Kushner

I try to tighten my heart into a knot, a snarl, I try to learn to live dead, just numb, but then I see someone I want, and it's like a nail, like a hot spike right through my chest, and I know I'm losing.

Tony Kushner

I just wondered what a thing it would be...if overnight everything you owe anything to, justice, or love, had really gone away. Free. It would be...heartless terror. Yes. Terrible, and... Very great. To shed your skin, every old skin, one by one and ...

Tony Kushner

I had a book of Bible stories when I was a kid. There was a picture I'd look at twenty times every day: Jacob wrestles with the angel. I don't really remember the story, or why the wrestling --just the picture. Jacob is young and very strong. The ang...

Tony Kushner

Roy: The immutable heart of what we are that bleeds through whatever we might become. All else is vanity.

Tony Kushner

Harper: You, the one part of the real world I wasn't allergic to.

Tony Kushner

You have a good heart and you think the good thing is to be guilty and kind but it's not always kind to be gentle and soft, there's a genuine violence softness and kindness visit on people. Sometimes self-interested is the most generous thing you can...

Tony Kushner

The body is the garden of the soul.

Tony Kushner

Harper: In your experience of the world. How do people change? Mormon Mother: Well it has something to do with God so it's not very nice. God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grab...

Tony Kushner

Belize: Hell or heaven? [Roy indicates "Heaven" through a glance] Belize: Like San Francisco. Roy Cohn: A city. Good. I was worried... it'd be a garden. I hate that shit. Belize: Mmmm. Big city. Overgrown with weeds, but flowering weeds. On every cor...

Tony Kushner

…if a thing can be said to be, to exist, then such is the nature of these expansive times that this thing which is must suffer to be touched. Ours is a time of connection; the private, and we must accept this, and it’s a hard thing to accept, the...

Tony Kushner

I work best after the deadline has passed, when I'm in a panic.

Tony Kushner

If you know that life is basically going to be horrendously difficult, at best, and all but unlivable at worst, or possibly even unlivable, do you go on? And the choice to go on is the only thing that I think can be called hope. Because if hope isn't...

Tony Kushner

But I think what made me go into theater was seeing my mother onstage. The first thing she did was Mrs. Frank in 'The Diary of Anne Frank.' The second thing she did was a play about Freud called 'The Far Country.' She played a paralyzed woman in Vien...

Tony Kushner

As a playwright, you are a torturer of actors and of the audience as well. You inflict things on people.

Tony Kushner

I write everything with fountain pens. I don't know why. I've done it since I was bar mitzvahed. I was given a fountain pen, a Parker fountain pen, and I loved it, and I've never liked writing anything with pencils or ball-points.

Tony Kushner

Author Bio

  • NameTony Kushner
  • DescriptionAmerican playwright and screenwriter
  • AliasesAnthony Robert Kushner; Tony Kushner
  • BornJuly 16, 1956
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPlaywright; Screenwriter; Writer; Music Educator
  • AwardsPulitzer Prize For Drama; Lambda Literary Award; Primetime Emmy Award