You learn that existence is legible but that you have to have a critical mind if you're going to read it.
Tony KushnerOne has to have a complicated kind of optimism. You can't refuse to look at how horrible things are.
Tony KushnerThe dreams of the left are always beautiful - the imagining of a better world, the damnation of the present one. This faith, this luminescent anger - these are worthy of being called human. These are the Beautiful that an age produces.
Tony KushnerI don't think you have to earn your income as an artist to be an artist. But if you are an artist, then art is what you do, whether or not you're paid for doing it; it is what you do, not what you are. I regard artist not as a description of temperament but as a category of profession, of vocation.
Tony KushnerYou don't go to the movies to do historical research, unless it's historical research about the movies.
Tony KushnerI'm happy that I feel a little less out of place in filmmaking than I once was - but it's almost impossible for a playwright in the U.S. to make a living. You can have a play, like I did with 'Angels,' and it still generates income for me, but it's not enough for me to live on and have health insurance.
Tony Kushner