John Patrick Shanley
John Patrick Shanley
John Patrick Shanleyis an American playwright, screenwriter, and theatre and film director. His play Doubt: A Parable won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as the 2005 Tony Award for Best Play. He won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for his film Moonstruck...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth3 October 1950
CountryUnited States of America
terror
Where the terror is, you must go.
kindness believe heart
There are people who...tell you that the light in your heart is a weakness. Don't believe it! It's an old tactic of cruel people to kill kindness in the name of virtue.
pain why-not honest
Everything is painful, so why not be honest about the pain?
evil world needs
If I could, Sister James, I would certainly choose to live in innocence. But innocence can only be wisdom in a world without evil. Situations arise and we are confronted with wrongdoing and the need to act.
nice winning lunch
Winning the Pulitzer is a really mellow, fabulous thing. You don't sit and wait for them to open an envelope. You already know you won, and you have a nice lunch. Oscars are more stressful. I had to sit for three hours and wait for my category. I had to fly to Los Angeles. For the Pulitzer I just had to go up to Columbia. But, while the president of Columbia gave me the Pulitzer, Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck gave me the Oscar, so that was better.
writing thinking people
When I write a screenplay - and I think this is true for a lot of people - you direct the movie. Thats what writing a screenplay is.
interesting challenges trying
Trying to lead an interesting life, a fruitful life, is a big challenge.
writing people house
If you put someone in a room with no script to direct, they're just going to sit there. Writing scripts is the execution for a show. Then the director takes that and hires people. It's like trying to build a house without any bricks. You need a great script.
couple reading eye
All plays stem from personal experience. I was reading psychoanalytic lit for a couple of years, obsessively, in depth, and I got involved in analyzing everyone around me. . . . Eventually, all my friends' eyes began to glaze over when I started talking this way, and I got the hint that there might be something comical in it.
doubt
I have doubts! I have such doubts!
names dear-god bigs
dear god, whose name i do not know. thank you for my life. i forgot... how BIG... thank you. thank you for my life.
caught money
You have to live in order to have something to write about - you get caught up in moviemaking and celebrities and money, and it's very intoxicating, but it doesn't give you what you need as a writer. You have to do something else for that.
believe farm felt heard ireland people visited
When I visited Ireland with my father and heard the people on the farm talking, I couldn't believe the gift of language they had. I felt very untalented.
alone asked asks father finally home man travel
When I finally went to Ireland, I had to go. It was 1993. My father was finally too old to travel alone, and he asked me to take him home. When an old man asks you to take him home, you have to do it.