220 Quotes by Sam Shepard

My dad was a kind of semiprofessional Dixieland-type drummer, and I learned the drums from him. When I was about twelve, we bought our first Ludwig drum set from a pawnshop - a marching-band bass drum, great big tom-toms, and big, deep snare drums.

When you listen intensely to anything, you see how it can be improved.

I remember, as a kid, going into other people's houses. Everything was different. The smells in the kitchen were different; the clothing was different. That bothered me. There's something very mysterious about other families and the way they function.

I wrote 'Buried Child' in a trailer at an old ranch house we had in California.

I feel very lucky and privileged to be a writer. I feel lucky in the sense that I can branch out into prose and tell different kinds of stories and stuff. But being a writer is so great because you're literally not dependent on anybody.

People are starved for the truth, and when something comes along that even looks like the truth, people will latch onto it because everything's so false.

It's very difficult to escape your background. You know, I don't think it's necessary to even try to escape it. More and more, I start to think that it's necessary to see exactly what it is that you inherited on both ends of the stick: your timidity, your courage, your self-deceit, and your honesty - and all the rest of it.

People are starved for a way of life - they're hunting for a way to be or to act toward the world.

I don't believe in a lot of schmoozing and buttering up. Not that you don't become friends in work. But I think it's a misconception that you have to do a lot of hanging before you work.