Quotes by Sam Shepard

“I feel like Ive never had a home, you know? I feel related to the country, to this country, and yet I dont know exactly where I fit in... Theres always this kind of nostalgia for a place, a place where you can reckon with yourself.”

“My father had a real short fuse. He had a really tough life - had to support his mother and brothers at a very young age when his dads farm collapsed. You could see his suffering, his terrible suffering, living a life that was disappointing and looking for another one. It was past frustration; it was anger.”

“Were being sold a brand-new idea of patriotism. It never occurred to me that patriotism had to be advertised. Patriotism is something you deeply felt. You didnt have to wear it on your lapel or show it in your window or on a bumper sticker. That kind of patriotism doesnt appeal to me at all.”

“Im a writer. The more I act, the more resistance I have to it. If you accept work in a movie, you accept to be entrapped for a certain part of time, but you know youre getting out. Im also earning enough to keep my horses, buying some time to write.”

“In the original New York production, which I directed, I had the good fortune to encounter a bluegrass group called the Red Clay Ramblers, out of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Their musical sensibilities, musicianship, and great repertoire of traditional and original tunes fit the play like a glove.”

“I didnt go out of my way to get into this movie stuff. I think of myself as a writer.”

“The Pelican Brief.”

“A Lie of the Mind”

“Curse of the Starving Class.”

“Honesty and courage. Also, neither of them can sing a lick. Shell be the first to admit she cant carry a melody line.”

I believe in my mask-- The man I made up is meI believe in my dance-- And my destiny

This isnt champagne anymore. We went through the champagne a long time ago. This is serious stuff. The days of champagne are long gone.

Weston: Look at my outlook. You dont envy it, right?Wesley: No.Weston: Thats because its full of poison. Infected. And you recognize poison, right? You recognize it when you see it?Wesley: Yes.Weston: Yes, you do. I can see that you do. My poison scares you.Wesley: Doesnt scare me.Weston: No?Wesley: No.Weston: Good. Youre growing up. I never saw my old mans poison until I was much older than you. Much older. And then you know how I recognized it?Wesley: How?Weston: Because I saw myself infected with it. Thats how. I saw me carrying it around. His poison in my body.

When you consider all the writers who never even had a machine. Who would have given an eyeball for a good typewriter. Any typewriter. All the ones who wrote on a matchbook covers. Paper bags. Toilet paper. Who had their writing destroyed by their jailers. Who persisted beyond all odds.

I dont understand my feelings. I really dont. I dont understand how I could hate you so much after so much time. How, no matter how much Id like to not hate you, I hate you even more. It grows.

You can’t keep messing me around like this. It’s been going on too long. I can’t take it anymore. I get sick every time you come around. Then I get sick when you leave. You’re like a disease to me.

You dont have to take it out on my typewrite ya know. Its not the machines fault that you cant write. Its a sin to do that to a good machine.

For me, playwriting is and has always been like making a chair. Your concerns are balance, form, timing, lights, space, music. If you dont have these essentials, you might as well be writing a theoretical essay, not a play.

When you write a play, you work out like a musician on a piece of music. You find all the rhythms and the melody and the harmonies and take them as they come.

Im not a big fan of anniversaries.