Quotes about stage
page 13

Jacques Ellul photo
Cheech Marin photo

“It is a very physically and mentally torturous process. It goes 18-20 hours a day, and if you’re stoned during that whole period, you’re not going to make a good movie, because you just won’t have the stamina to physically and mentally do that. And it’s every day. So we didn’t get stoned making the record, never stoned on stage. But we were very disciplined artists about what we were doing. It didn’t magically happen. Well, it did magically happen, but not without effort.”

Cheech Marin (1946) American comedian, actor and writer

On how there’s a misconception that he’s like his stoner character in “Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong Are Not Their Characters: ‘It’s All for the Love of the Art’” https://www.thewrap.com/heres-the-biggest-misconception-about-cheech-and-chong/ in The Wrap (2018 Sep 14)

Elizabeth Acevedo photo
Susan Rice photo
Dave Lindorff photo
Gaur Gopal Das photo
Pete Escovedo photo

“If you can strum the guitar a little, hit the drums — it’s always fun and a good way to release tensions…You can have a hard day at work, pick up your instrument and just feel better. You also can appreciate why a performer is up on stage and see how they have spent their life learning their craft.”

Pete Escovedo (1935) Mexican-American jazz musician and percussionist

On the benefits of being a musician in “Drummer Pete Escovedo will stick with what he knows at Thornton Winery” https://www.pe.com/2017/07/06/drummer-pete-escovedo-will-stick-with-what-he-knows-at-thornton-winery/ in The Press-Enterprise (2017 Jul 6)

Madhu Kishwar photo
Karen Zacarias photo

“Coming to the theater humanizes people…Culture informs perspective, and the world is a complicated place. Telling the story on stage increases understanding…”

Karen Zacarias (1969) Mexican-American playwright

On how she views theater in “BWW Interview: A Date with DESTINY: Talking with Playwright Karen Zacarías” https://www.broadwayworld.com/washington-dc/article/BWW-Interview-A-Date-with-DESTINY-Talking-with-Playwright-Karen-Zacaras-20150914 in Broadway World (2015 Sep 14)

Chris Martin photo
Josefina Lopez photo
Gwen Ifill photo

“I was drawn to journalism because of the need to be the necessary voice - not to force my opinions on others but to broaden the stage for the debate…”

Gwen Ifill (1955–2016) American journalist, television newscaster and author

On her career path in “Journalist Gwen Ifill: In Her Own Words” https://www.npr.org/2016/11/14/502050955/journalist-gwen-ifill-in-her-own-words in NPR (2016 Nov 14)

Mao Zedong photo

“All relatively complete knowledge is formed in two stages: the first stage is perceptual knowledge, the second is rational knowledge, the latter being the development of the former to a higher stage.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

"Rectify the Party's Style of Work" (1942)

María Irene Fornés photo

“Theater is a service where the god keeps changing…Sometimes it’s the actor. Sometimes it’s the director. Sometimes it’s the stage manager. Sometimes, but almost never, it’s the playwright.”

María Irene Fornés (1930–2018) American writer

On the fickle nature of theater in “Moment to Moment: with Maria Irene Fornes” https://brooklynrail.org/2002/10/theater/moment-to-moment-with-maria-irene-fornes in The Brooklyn Rail (Autumn 2002)

Vladimir Lenin photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo

“Ethics, in our part of the world, may be considered to have advanced, at least in its pretensions, to the anthropocentric stage of evolution. Aggregation has advanced from individual to tribe, and from tribe to race, and from race to sex, and from sex to species, until to-day the ethical conception of many minds includes, with greater or less vividness and sincerity, all sexes, colors, and conditions of men.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

The fact that an animal is a human, that is, that he belongs to the hominine species of beings, entitles him, regardless of his imperfections, to some sort of consideration.
Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), The Social Ideal, p. 143

J. Howard Moore photo
Eldridge Cleaver photo
James Madison photo

“It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it the finger of that Almighty Hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the Revolution.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

As quoted in The Federalist https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101037492095;seq=202;skin=mobile (Philadelphia: Benjamin Warner, 1818), p. 194, James Madison, Federalist #37.
1770s

Nasser Khalili photo

“At this stage of my life with the permission of my family I came up with a sort of square rules of what I want to do from here onwards, the rules are very simple I said that I have to look after myself, I have to look after my family, I have to look after my friends and I have to do my charities in this order.”

Nasser Khalili (1945) British-Iranian scholar, collector and philanthropist

Interview on The Art Of Collecting by Sky Arts - Professor Nasser David Khalili episode (February 21, 2018) https://vimeo.com/256957904

Ramsay MacDonald photo
Frantz Fanon photo
William Quan Judge photo
Charles Webster Leadbeater photo
Henry Steel Olcott photo
Edmund Burke photo
Agatha Christie photo

“I have the little idea, my friend, that this is a crime very carefully planned and staged. It is a far-sighted, long-headed crime. It is not — how shall I express it?”

a Latin crime. It is a crime that shows traces of a cool, resourceful, deliberate brain — I think an Anglo-Saxon brain.
Murder on the Orient Express (1934)

Aleksandr Dugin photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
David Cameron photo
Baruch Spinoza photo

“From this point we glance back to the alleged atheism of Spinoza. The charge will be seen to be unfounded if we remember that his system, instead of denying God, rather recognises that he alone really is. Nor can it be maintained that the God of Spinoza, although he is described as alone true, is not the true God, and therefore as good as no God. If that were a just charge, it would only prove that all other systems, where speculation has not gone beyond a subordinate stage of the idea — that the Jews and Mohammedans who know God only as the Lord — and that even the many Christians for whom God is merely the most high, unknowable, and transcendent being, are as much atheists as Spinoza. The so-called atheism of Spinoza is merely an exaggeration of the fact that he defrauds the principle of difference or finitude of its due. Hence his system, as it holds that there is properly speaking no world, at any rate that the world has no positive being, should rather be styled Acosmism. These considerations will also show what is to be said of the charge of Pantheism. If Pantheism means, as it often does, the doctrine which takes finite things in their finitude and in the complex of them to be God, we must acquit the system of Spinoza of the crime of Pantheism. For in that system, finite things and the world as a whole are denied all truth. On the other hand, the philosophy which is Acosmism is for that reason certainly pantheistic.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences: The Logic
G - L, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Baruch Spinoza photo

“It is a pity that such a thinker as Spinoza had to leave our stage so soon. He could not live to see the enormous progress of science which would also have improved his system.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Johann Gottfried Herder, God, Some Conversations (1787) [original in German]
G - L

Ernst, Baron von Feuchtersleben photo

“I was totally star-struck as a youngster and incredibly shy, but I loved the theatre – especially pantomimes. After a failed audition for RADA, I worked as a trainee fashion buyer at Harrods, where they had an entertainments society and I performed in several of its productions. I took singing lessons and my teacher encouraged me to read The Stage, where I saw that chorus singers were needed for the musical The Belle Of New York.”

Valerie Leon (1943) English actress

I got the job – much to my parents’ horror, who wanted me to keep my respectable job, but I was determined to become an actress.
Whatever happened to Bond Girl Valerie Leon? http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/614933/Bond-Girl-Valerie-Leon-career-life (November 2, 2015)

Piero Manzoni photo
Mohammad Hidayatullah photo
Richard Burton photo

“The magnificent baritone was not merely a voice. It was an orchestra of enormous range and power, its graceful sound seemed to linger on for millions who had heard it on film and stage. Homer must have known someone very much like Richard Burton.”

Richard Burton (1925–1984) Welsh actor

Gerald Clarke, in Show Business: The Mellifluous Prince of Disorder http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,954366,00.html, 20 August 1984

Hema Malini photo

“It has been more than three decades but Hema Malini’s passion for dance has not diminished. Starting in the early 70s with solo Bhratanatyam performances, the diva has reinvented herself at every stage of her career. When she felt that the pure classical dance form would not be appreciated by a less aware audience, she expanded her art form to include ballets.”

Hema Malini (1948) Indian actress, dancer and politician

Writer Bhawana Somaaya in [Bhawana Somaaya, Fragmented Frames: Reflections of a Critic, http://books.google.com/books?id=HQ3Yi9VPU8QC&pg=PP201, 1 January 2008, Pustak Mahal, 978-81-223-1016-0, 201–]

Ellen Kushner photo

“Abjuring love? Real people don’t do that. Now you’re the one who sounds like someone on a stage. That’s not the real world. Real people follow their hearts, wherever it takes them. Real people refuse to be put into a little tiny box. You can say you love me or you don’t love me, it doesn’t matter; I know you have foresworn nothing except an existence you found intolerable.”

She really did smile this time. “Now you’re making me sound like a heroine. Be honest, Lucius. For all that you go on about the real world with its real people, you don’t really want to live in it, either.”
Part III, Chapter VIII (p. 299)
The Privilege of the Sword (2006)

Ted Hughes photo
Gottfried Helnwein photo
Simone Bittencourt de Oliveira photo

“Looked at from the perspective of twentieth-century earth, we see three great stages in the dynamic process of the universe. To this whole process, as it spreads out over perhaps ten billion years of time and ten billion light years of space, we give the name evolution, and we see three great patterns within it. The first is physical evolution.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

This presumably started with the development of the most elementary particles (whatever they may be); then of neutrons, protons, electrons, and radiations; then of elements from hydrogen to uranium and beyond formed by combining protons and electrons; then of chemical compounds; then finally of increasingly complex molecules from amino acids, and proteins to the great watershed of DNA, the beginnings of life.
Source: 1970s, Ecodynamics: A New Theory Of Societal Evolution, 1978, p. 28

Steven Gerrard photo

“Steven Gerrard was awesome today. We were just laughing in the dressing room that at one stage we thought he was heading his own crosses in.”

Steven Gerrard (1980) English footballer

Gareth Southgate on Gerrard after a Premiership game between Middlesbrough and Liverpool in 2005. Peter Gill. "Lordy, It's The Quotes Of The Week", Football365.com, August 16, 2005 (article offline; cache http://web.archive.org/web/20051028201926/http://www.football365.com/features/interviews/story_159958.shtml).

“In Stage II guilt is first of all social, liberal, moral guilt—a guilt so general as to seem almost formal. It is we who are responsible, either by commission or—more generally—by omission, for everything from killing off the Tasmanians to burning the books at Alexandria.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

You didn’t do it? Then you should have stopped them from doing it. You never heard of it? Ignorant as well as evil, eh? You weren’t born? You’re guilty, I tell you—guilty.
“Freud to Paul: The Stages of Auden’s Ideology”, p. 169
The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

Jeff Buckley photo
Prem Rawat photo
Robert Greene photo
Julio Iglesias photo

“The feeling is the same. You close your eyes and you are on the stage and you feel that warmth from the people.”

Julio Iglesias (1943) Spanish recording artist; singer-songwriter

On performing before a live audience in "Julio Iglesias says 50-year singing career is 'a miracle'" https://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-julio-iglesias/julio-iglesias-says-50-year-singing-career-is-a-miracle-idUSKCN1T60WU in Reuters (2019 Jun 5)

James McBride (writer) photo

“Writing is the act of failing at something all the time. Do it with a sense of humor, and it ain’t no big deal. Life is just about falling on stage and getting up, and that’s what writing is all about, too.”

James McBride (writer) (1957) American journalist

On the potential failure of writing in “James McBride: How I Write” https://www.writermag.com/writing-inspiration/author-interviews/james-mcbride-write/ in The Writer (2013 Dec 30)

Angelique Rockas photo

“The first performance the company staged was Ford`s '`Tis Pity Shes a Whore.'”

Angelique Rockas South African actress and founder of Internationalist Theatre, London

It was well received. I like to choose the play, the directors, the designers.. it`s a total creative act.
On the production of Ford`s Tis Pity She`s A Whore`
TA NEA (London) Interview (June 1983)

Dana Arnold photo
James Thurber photo
Ram Prasad Bismil photo
Herbert Read photo
Don Lee (author) photo

“I feel queasy about the idea of having non-Asians taking center stage in one of my books. I would feel guilty about it, as if I were trying to deny my ethnic heritage, even though this is precisely what I am suggesting we should be free to do.”

Don Lee (author) (1959) American writer

On the writing dilemmas that he faces in “Don Lee: The Ethnic Literature Box” https://www.guernicamag.com/don-lee-the-ethnic-literature-box/ in Guernica Magazine (2012 Jun 25)

William Cobbett photo
Marianne Williamson photo

“I haven’t heard anybody on this stage who has talked about American foreign policy in Latin America... There is an injustice that continues to form a toxicity underneath the surface, an emotional turbulence, people heal when there’s some deep truth-telling.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

We Desperately Need Marianne Williamson’s Message. https://theintercept.com/2019/08/05/marianne-williamson-2020-presidential-campaign/ The Intercept, Jon Schwarz (5 August 2019)

“We (China) are still at a very critical stage in fighting the (2019-nCoV) Coronavirus. International solidarity is extremely important and for that purpose all countries should behave in a responsible manner.”

Zhang Jun (1960) Chinese ambassador

Zhang Jun (2020) cited in " China virus death toll rises to at least 212 as WHO declares global emergency https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2020/01/31/china-virus-death-toll-rises-to-at-least-212-as-who-declares-global-emergency" on The Star Online, 31 January 2020.

Robert Graves photo
Boris Johnson photo

“At this stage I do not think that the international comparisons and the data are yet there to draw the conclusions that we want.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Prime Minister's Questions https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2020-05-06/debates/FD4CE89E-F564-4D9F-B396-59684C404BB8/PrimeMinister (6 May 2020)
2020s, 2020

Harry Gordon Selfridge photo
Samantha Akkineni photo

“I have made my fair share of mistakes. In the beginning when you are trying to find your way, you end up doing stereotypical and cliche roles, I have done all of that. I am at a stage in regional cinema where I am looking to do roles that test and push me to my limit.”

Samantha Akkineni (1987) Indian actress

"When It Comes To Bollywood, Samantha Ruth Prabhu Doesn't Want To Repeat The "Mistakes" She Made In Regional Cinema" https://www.ndtv.com/entertainment/when-it-comes-to-bollywood-samantha-ruth-prabhu-doesnt-want-to-repeat-the-mistakes-she-made-in-regional-cinema-2327062. NDTV. (November 18, 2020).

Stephen Vincent Benét photo
Enoch Powell photo

“I haven’t been able to sleep before entering the house; I’m that thrilled to share the same stage as him. It’s an absolute dream come true.”

Nikki Tamboli (1996) Indian Actress

Bigg Boss 14: Nikki Tamboli wants to work with Vijay Sethupathi after reality show

John F. Kennedy photo
Annie Besant photo
Annie Besant photo
Annie Besant photo
Mashrafe Mortaza photo
John Strachey photo
Henry Morton Stanley photo

“Only by proving that we are superior to the savages, not only through our power to kill them but through our entire way of life, can we control them as they are now, in their present stage; it is necessary for their own well-being, even more than ours.”

Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904) Welsh journalist and explorer

Source: Leopold II, Het hele Verhaal, Johan Op De Beeck Horizon, 2020 https://klara.be/leopold-ii-aflevering-6 ISBN 9789463962094 Stanley writes this on his first expidition commissioned by King Leopold II of Belgium after describing with horror the horrible scenes of atrocities and cannibalism that take place in Congo.

Torrie Wilson photo
Sara Shane photo

“All the experience I had in television, radio, theater, stage and films gave me confidence in front of crowds. Because of that, I can talk to an audience of a thousand people without a moment's nervousness, and talk without a script for hours.”

Sara Shane (1928–2022) American actress

Interview with Elaine Hollingsworth https://web.archive.org/web/20071003020618/http://www.tarzan.cc/int-sarashane.html (July 9, 2007)

John B. Calhoun photo
John Mulaney photo
Mary Jo Catlett photo

“I would really like to do more dramatic work on the stage. It's difficult as a character actress because they casting directors and producers don't think of you as an actress, they think of you as a comedian.”

Mary Jo Catlett (1938) actress

HER ROLE AS DIRECTOR A LOT OF 'NUNSENSE' https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1988-01-31-0010310197-story.html (January 31, 1988)

Joby Talbot photo

“Every genre has its challenges. Sometimes it's harder to play a supportive role than to take center stage.”

Joby Talbot (1971) British composer

Joby Talbot: a composer's journey through Wonderland to the foothills of Everest https://bachtrack.com/interview-joby-talbot-contemporary-focus-2014 (15 October 2014)

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Lulu Wang photo

“We all have different aspects of ourselves, and who we are to different people in our lives, at different stages of our lives.”

Lulu Wang (1983) Asian-American filmmaker

As quoted in "The Farewell writer-director Lulu Wang on the joys of laughing at human nature" in The Verge (17 July 2019) https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/17/20696611/the-farewell-writer-director-lulu-wang-interview-awkwafina

Penn Badgley photo

“I think anybody who gets to that stage in reality is so beyond self-loathing. If you hate yourself, well, then you're going to turn some of that hatred on the world around you.”

Penn Badgley (1986) American actor and musician

Source: "Penn Badgley Isn't Who You Fans Think He Is" in InStyle https://www.instyle.com/celebrity/penn-badgley-interview-you-2021 (14 October 2021)

“Regarding the change in identity, I actually took the initiative to accept and work hard to change in this direction, because I feel that growing up on the stage is not as rewarding as recording a show, and I am still eager to go.”

Yang Li (1992) Chinese stand-up comedian

Original: 【开腔】杨笠:过去一年,反倒是我最不迷茫的一年
Source: [https://www.chinanews.com/yl/2021/10-12/9584866.shtml
(12 October 2021)

Vera Stanley Alder photo

“There will be tremendous difficulties to surmount whilst trying to arrive at the coming stages...”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Chapter II Planning a Model World

Vera Stanley Alder photo

“I’m on the stage alone for 90 minutes. If I start mailing it in, I’m going to get lost. Part of the craft of acting is being properly prepared. I have too much respect for Lincoln to approach it any other way.”

Granville Van Dusen (1944) American actor

Source: Curtain Up: Lincoln actor hangs up his top hat https://cumberlink.com/entertainment/local-scene/curtain-up-lincoln-actor-hangs-up-his-top-hat/article_ecccfa3c-72f9-52f8-a78b-e072b8063925.html (July 9, 2015)

Abu Talib al-Makki photo
Charlton Heston photo
Jesús Sanz Montes photo

“To play God today is to be the owner of human life, to control that life in all of his stages and all of its forms. A control that decides who must be eliminated and when.”

Jesús Sanz Montes (1955) Spanish archbishop

Source: Government trying to play God with proposed medical research law, Bishop warns https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/7999/government-trying-to-play-god-with-proposed-medical-research-law-bishop-warns (6 November 2006)