220 Quotes by Sam Shepard

In many of my plays, there was a kind of autobiographical character in the form of a son or young man. The purpose of it, of course, was to write about myself. That character was always the least fully realized. Eighteen years later, you realize, That’s what he was about.

I’ve been my own man. Ain’t nothing richer than that.

I’m a writer. The more I act, the more resistance I have to it. If you accept work in a movie, you accept to be entrapped for a certain part of time, but you know you’re getting out. I’m also earning enough to keep my horses, buying some time to write.

Being a writer is so great because you’re literally not dependent on anybody. Whereas, as an actor, you have to audition or wait for somebody else to make a decision about how to use you, with writing, you can do it anywhere, anytime you want. You don’t have to ask permission.

Austin: “Well it is like salvation sort of. I mean the smell. I love the smell of toast. And the sun’s coming up. It makes me feel like anything’s possible. Y’know?

I don’t get offered leading parts. I suppose I’ve become a kind of character actor or sideman. I think it had to do with probably in the ’90s, I refused so many leading roles that they gave up on me, or I just became unpopular, or I became old. All those reasons.

When you see the way things deteriorate before your very eyes. Everything running down hill. It’s kind of silly to even think about youth.

VINCE: We’d never make it. We’d drive and we’d drive and we’d drive and we’d never make it. We’d think we were getting farther and farther away. That’s what we’d think.

You can write 16 plays and not make as much money as you did doing one movie.