50 Most Dramatic Theatre Quotes

“A creative and artistic home is what I’ve been looking for in the theatre.” – Kenneth Branagh. Here are 50 Best Theatre Quotes.

Theatre Quotes

1. “Love art in yourself, and not yourself in art.”― Constantin Stanislavski

2. “All the world's a stage.”― William Shakespeare

3. “Movies will make you famous; Television will make you rich; But theatre will make you good.”―Terrence Mann

4. “Act well your part; there all the honour lies.”― Alexander Pope

5. “Life is a theatre set in which there are but few practicable entrances.”― Victor Hugo

6. “An actor must never be afraid to make a fool of himself.”― Harvey C.

7. “I AM the current curator of the black trunk and the stories it holds within.”― Hope Barrett

8.“All the world’s a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.” – Seán O’Casey

9.“Theatre is a sacred space for actors. You are responsible; you are in the driving-seat.” – Greta Scacchi

10. “I think drama has to push things to extremes so that we can understand what we are doing in our society.”
― Edward Bond

11. “The curtain rises even on an actor's worst day.”― Stewart Stafford

12. “She never feels more alive than at these moments. When onstage she fears nothing.”― Emily St

Theatre Quotes

13. “In the Theatre of Life, the Show Must Go On!”― Avijeet Das

14. “Most playwrights should observe the same constitutional rights as the Queen: to be consulted, to advise and to warn.”― John Osborne

15.“I’m really very sorry for you all, but it’s an unjust world, and virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances.” – W.S. Gilbert

16.“Happiness was useless to me. It was heartache that filled my purse. What happy man has need of Shakespeare?” – Jennifer Donnelly

17.“ Acting is a sport. On stage you must be ready to move like a tennis player on his toes. Your concentration must be keen, your reflexes sharp; your body and mind are in top gear, the chase is on. Acting is energy. In the theatre people pay to see energy.” – Clive Swift

18.“ The theatre is certainly a place for learning about the brevity of human glory: oh all those wonderful glittering absolutely vanished pantomime.” – Iris Murdoch

19. “Theatre is the art form of the present: it exists only in the present, and then it’s gone.” – Simon McBurney

20.“A creative and artistic home is what I’ve been looking for in the theatre.” – Kenneth Branagh

21.“The theatre was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation.” – Stella Adler

22.“Great theatre is about challenging how we think and encouraging us to fantasize about a world we aspire to.”       – Willem Dafoe

23.“With theatre, you have to be ready for anything.” – Willem Dafoe

24.“Musical theatre history is littered with bad reviews for now classic pieces.” – Andrew Lloyd Webber

Theatre Quotes

25. “Take me for what I am, who I was meant to be.” – Rent

26.“My real training as an actor was when I started doing theatre.”- Steve Buscemi

27.“Make them laugh, make them cry, and hack to laughter. What do people go to the theatre for? An emotional exercise. I am a servant of the people. I have never forgotten that.” – Mary Pickford

28.“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” – Moulin Rouge

29.“Theatre is a series of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.” – Tom Stoppard

30.“Everything happens every night for this audience, and it’s a very special occasion to come to the theatre.”            – Roger Rees

31.“Everything happens every night for this audience, and it’s a very special occasion to come to the theatre.”             – Roger Rees

32.“Actors are all about entrances, but writers are all about exits.” ― Vincent H. O’Neil

33.“It’s time to trust my instincts, close my eyes and leap!” – Wicked

34. “Theatre exists only because it is overwhelming because its acting is astonishing. Where a theatre and its acting are merely ‘good,’ merely ‘correct,’ merely ‘in the proper style,’ theatre dies a slow death.”  – Robert Cohen

35.“The theatre, when all is said and done, is not life in miniature, but life enormously magnified, life hideously exaggerated.” – H. L. Mencken

36.“Coughing in the theatre is not a respiratory ailment. It is criticism.” – Alan Jay Lerner

Theatre Quotes

37.“The theatre is so endlessly fascinating because it’s so accidental. It’s so much like life.” – Arthur Miller

38.“In the theatre the audience wants to be surprised but by things that they expect.” – Tristan Bernard

39.“Now life has killed the dream I dreamed” – Les Miserables

40.“Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.”- Ellen Barkin

41.“To be a character who feels a deep emotion, one must go into the memory’s vault and mix in a sad memory from one’s own life.” - Albert Finney

42.“Actors are the only honest hypocrites.”- William Hazlitt

43.“If you cast wrong, you are in a lot of trouble.” – Paul Mazursky

44.“Drama – what literature does at night.” – George Jean Nathan

45.“The most precious things in speech are pauses.”- Ralph Richardson

46.“I want to make the audience laugh and cry within ten seconds, to show just how close those emotions are.” -Neil Simon

47.“A talent for drama is not a talent for writing but is an ability to articulate human relationships.” -Gore Vidal

48.“It is not theatre that is indispensable, but something quite different. To cross the frontiers between you and me.” – Jerzy Grotowski

49.“The theater is a great equalizer: it is the only place where the poor can look down on the rich.”  – Will Rogers

50.“Don’t think you’re funny. It’ll never work if you think you’re funny.” – George Abbott