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
conscience dangerous destroy few ground life middle people rigor satisfies total wake
Conscience is the most dangerous thing you possess. If you wake it up, it may destroy you. To live a life of total moral rigor is not necessarily the way to go. It's the path for very few people. Most people need to come up with some kind of middle ground that satisfies their practical, moral, and philosophical esthetic needs.
fewer plays
The modern economics of the theater is such that we write plays with fewer and fewer characters.
incredibly
'The Miracle Worker' is just such an incredibly powerful play on stage, and is so kinetic, and athletic.
amazed cloth corps man marine saw
I was in the Marine Corps in 1971. The idea 'Where does authority come from?' is fascinating to me. And also, the idea of a chaplain is fascinating to me because it's a man of the cloth in uniform, and it's the uniform of a killing machine. Back when I was in the Corps, when I saw that, I was amazed by it.
exciting goes great individual last money precisely
Playwriting is the last great bastion of the individual writer. It's exciting precisely because it's where the money isn't. Money goes to safety, to consensus. It's not individualism.
five gets people plays
Back when you were doing plays like 'The Miracle Worker,' you had 20, 25 people in the cast. When you go to make the film, that's not such a stretch. But when you're doing plays like 'Proof,' it's just five people or something in the thing, and it gets to be a really difficult re-conception.
particular playwright
I became a playwright and screenwriter. Italian-Americans were my particular specialty. I liked the way they talked. There was something free in it.
business given life whenever
I've done very well in the film business. Whenever I have wanted something, the film business has given it to me. I'm very fortunate. My big problem in life has always been, 'What do I want?'
hang onto
I would say that my parents were intermittently proud of me. They couldn't hang onto it, you know? It would come and go, like the flu.
adopted disease enamored five four involved rounds theater
I adopted two children, then I got eye disease and five rounds of surgery. I went blind in one eye, then the other eye, and that went on for three or four years. I got very enamored and involved with the theater and did a lot of plays.
courage moving order
I am not a courageous person by nature. I have simply discovered that, at certain key moments in this life, you must find courage in yourself, in order to move forward and live. It is like a muscle and it must be exercised, first a little, and then more and more. All the really exciting things possible during the course of a lifetime require a little more courage than we currently have. A deep breath and a leap.
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?