31 Quotes by Terrence McNally

Mary: What are you teaching Him at that public high school of yours, Mrs. McElroy?Joshua: She's teaching Me that this town is the armpit of Western civilization.

Patricia: What they did was stupid and cruel and why I am going to write the president of the United States telling him that if there is any place in this country where nuclear bomb testing should be allowed, it's Corpus Christi, Texas.

If you're trying to write something that you don't understand and embrace at the very core of you, it's not going to turn out with quite the authenticity and passion it should have.

Cheating is not the American way. It is small, while we are large. It is cheap, while we are richly endowed. It is destructive, while we are creative. It is doomed to fail, while our gifts and responsibilities call us to achieve. It sabotages trust and weakens the bonds of spirit and humanity, without which we perish.

I may think I have inalienable rights to be alive and happy, but I don't - life is a blessing.

I like to surprise myself. I've always been attracted to projects where I don't know how they're going to turn out.

I'm of the school 'Write what you know.' You can educate yourself, but the best writing usually comes from the heart.

With me, writing is 60% imagination, 30% people you know and 10% you don't know where it comes from.

'American Playhouse' is very supportive of writers. That's really why writers like to write for 'American Playhouse' for very little money. They care about making your play, your script, not some network production. We're treated like playwrights, not like fodder for some machine.