Go into the streets, into the slums, into the fashionable quarters. Go into the day courts and the night courts. Become acquainted with sorrow, with many kinds of sorrow. Learn of the wonderful heroism of the poor, of the incredible generosity of the very poor

People whose understanding and taste in literature, painting, and music are beyond question are, for the most part, ignorant of what is good or bad art in the theater.

The actor who lets the dust accumulate on his Ibsen, his Shakspere [sic], and his Bible, but pores greedily over every little column of theatrical news, is a lost soul.

...an actor is exactly as big as his imagination.

It is in the irony of things that the theatre should be the most dangerous place for the actor. But, then, after all, the world is the worst possible place, the most corrupting place, for the human soul. And just as there is no escape from the world, which follows us into the very heart of the desert, so the actor cannot escape the theatre. And the actor who is a dreamer need not. All of us can only strive to remain uncontaminated. In the world we must be unworldly, in the theatre the actor must be untheatrical.

...I have never known a movement in the theater that did not work direct and serious harm. Indeed, I have sometimes felt that the very people associated with various uplifting activities in the theater are people who are astoundingly lacking in idealism.

This...is an age of specialization, and in such an age the repertory theater is an anachronism, a ludicrous anachronism.