84 Quotes by Adam Rapp

10. You have to deal with stuff on your own and that's all there is to it.

Mrs. Leene says I should think about people in the present tense. “It forces you to take responsibility for them,” she says.

Some of the greatest works of theater, from Chekov's work to modern playwrights', consist of just a few people in a room with no one leaving.

I think there is a complicated side effect to overcoming evil in that we are forever changed by it. I think after we ingest some of the cruelty of the world, it takes years off of our lives, but it also gives us wisdom and a little grace, hopefully a sense of compassion.

I have to be entertained by what I'm writing, so a lot of my stuff has a goofiness or scatological quality. If these characters can entertain me, then I feel like I can deal with the darker or more serious stuff.

When I came to New York, I was really awkward. I went to military academy for high school, so I didn't have the socialization that most kids do. When I got here, I was five years behind everybody. Talking to women was weird for me.

When I work in the theater, you know you'll get this almost devotional, religious experience where you're breaking bread with everyone every day.

I hate the idea of sheltering kids from challenging books. It's just another form of conservative fear that promotes ignorance more than anything else.

One of the tricks to writing great plays is to get people in a room together and not let them leave. You want the tension to escalate. Keeping them there is the hardest part, so you have to take away any excuse for them to leave.