Elizabeth Ashley Quotations

People pay all that money to sit in a chair in the theater mainly because it is a respectable way to see and experience things they cannot see and experience in their own lives.

All the things that are negative in me as a person - the incompetence and despair and weakness and pain - are like a gift from God in a performer. If you don't hide them and if you stop lying to yourself about what you are and are not, there is a ring or a tent or a stage where you can take them and use them to make something beautiful.

Art isn't something you do or are. It's where you aim, the target you shoot at.

Because I'm a performer I can justify and sometimes sell the things about me that offend and shock the conventional world. I need to live life in the fast lane. I need to do things to excess. I need to go over the edge. I have an obligation to experience the things most people can't experience. The taboos. The things you're not supposed to know or do. That's part of my job. That's why I do it. I would probably do it anyway.

Sex is just another real good drug ... and it can make a junkie out of you.

the flip side of success is fear. And fear is the devil. And success is the devil's dope.

drama is made up of what people most fear and deny in themselves. The taboos. The secrets. The devils and the demons. The only reason they let us live, I suppose, is because somebody has to confront what those things are like and tell other people about them.

In a great romance, each person basically plays a part that the other really likes.

In a great romance, each person plays a part the other really likes.

Absence does not make the heart grow fonder, but it sure heats up the blood.